


Heart and Blood

by Noceu



Series: Watching the World [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blind Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eye Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Mind Meld, Slow Burn, Torture, Whump, background tim/martin, mind sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-06-12 01:33:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 97,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15328776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noceu/pseuds/Noceu
Summary: In which Jon makes many bad decisions.He chases a lead to Canada, what he finds there is a lot less hospitable than the cozy little city he'd expected; he learns the Hunt is a terrifying mistress, and that monsters aren't all what they seem to be.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Title AKA _I Went to Alberta and All I Got Was This Wonderful Goth_
> 
> Not many of the tags actually relate to this first chapter as it's a more general intro to the theme, but more tags will be added as the work progresses! I've got up to chapter 7 written and the idea is to update this weekly until it's finished!
> 
> (EDIT: The majority of this fic was written before MAG 111, this is now completely AU!)

The second time Jon encountered a Leitner, he was twelve.

Barely four days had passed since his birthday party, if it could be called that without balloons and hats and games, but it wasn’t his fault it landed on a school holiday, smack in the middle of the busiest week in the year. Instead of celebrating, Jon had spent the day with a single friend, building pillow forts and dodging his grandma’s attention every time she entered the room. It was good fun and by the time his friend’s mother had arrived to pick him up, Jon was weary, aching to be left alone with his piles of shiny new books.

He’d read the next couple days away, so absorbed in tales of invented space travel and monsters that everything else blurred to the meaningless motions of a school-aged boy.

That is, until they visited.

It was a Friday night, late enough that although Jon knew he should’ve been asleep -- after all, it was hours past his bedtime -- he lay in bed awake. Blankets cocooned him and a night light shone dimly in the corner of the room. It was just bright enough that his eyes barely struggled to read word after word of the book he was currently devouring.

When the door creaked open, it was instinct that took over. Jon dove under the covers, pulling the blankets over his head tightly, pretending he’d been asleep for hours. It wasn’t  unusual for his grandma to check on him and it was only when the door didn’t click shut, signalling her retreat back into the living room, that Jon’s breath quickened with fear, and a little wonder.

Through the gloom, he heard the sound of footsteps. At first, his only thought was that, yes, this was his grandma, who'd come to check up on him and would therefore deal with the intruder in his room. It wasn't until Jon noticed the two voices, conversing quietly and with clear familiarity, that he knew this wasn't the case. That no one was coming to save him.

In the background, distant and muffled by too many doors, there was the familiar buzz of his grandma's evening soap opera, too faint to offer him any comfort.

As every sound grew louder and more insistent, so did the conversation. Barely a foot or two away from his bed, someone -- or something, though they sounded human -- rummaged through his desk. Books fell to the floor and Jon’s heart thundered so furiously in his chest and in his ears that he was sure whoever was out there would be able to tell he wasn't really asleep. 

If they did, they paid him no attention whatsoever. They never noticed the way his breath hitched when a dark shadow leaned over his blanket cocoon, or how his fingers trembled, holding the covers taut over his body.

“Are you done with that woman?” The first voice sounded old, sharp and angry. Prickly with impatience.

“She won’t remember anything, like you wanted.” Whoever replied, they were much younger, bored, or maybe just careless, with the kind of cockiness of some of the older kids Jon knew.

Even through the worry that he might be discovered, that his grandma might’ve been harmed and that he might follow, morbid curiosity peaked in Jon when he heard the rustling of paper, of books being opened and closed in quick succession. It was followed by several curses he should not know the meaning of, but did.

“And the kid?”

“I don't know, you're the one searching the room. Is the kid awake?”

“It doesn’t matter, if he is, he’s staying quiet.” It paused. “The book isn’t in this room.”

“No? Well, there was a stack of them back in the living room, maybe it's there. I dunno, I didn't look.”

“You didn't look? Useless child.”

“Whatever you say, mother. I did what you asked, you didn’t ask me to look in that pile.”

Jon recognized this tone, it was the same he used with grandma whenever he got in trouble and knew there was no way out of it. There was a long pause, the sound of shuffling footsteps, immediately followed by a loud smack -- flesh hitting flesh -- and a soft hiss.

“That book is the only reason we are here, you’d do well not to forget that.”

Jon didn't understand what was going on, only that when the voices withdrew in the direction of the living room, he peeked his head out of the blankets and saw two shadows move through the darkened corridor, lit only faintly by his nightlight. One of the shadows was tall and sleek, the other much shorter but somehow… imposing, darker. He swallowed down a lump of fear and hopped out of bed.

Looking back, it was hard not to judge it as one of the first truly stupid decisions in his life. Fueled by conflicting emotions, gripped by the worry that this pair of strangers might somehow hurt the only family he had left and that only his actions could prevent it, Jon walked down the corridor. He was barefoot and hardly stealthy.

From the living room spilled a familiar yellow, warm light. The door had been pulled almost all the way open, revealing with stark clarity the shapes of an old woman and a young man standing by the dining table.

“Are you sure she had the book at all? I mean… she doesn’t look the type,” the man said. Although his face was mostly obscured by a hood, it was bright enough in the room for Jon to see the red hand shaped mark on his cheek.

Jon flinched, without really knowing why.

“Have you gone daft in your rebellion? The book is here somewhere. And if you put your eyes to some use, we'll find it faster.”

“That's not how it works, and you know it,” the man groaned, lifting one hand up to look at something on his skin.

From his hiding spot on the doorway, Jon could make out dark blotches covering the man's fingers and knuckles, nothing more. He didn't have very long to wonder about what the marks meant or why they seemed to shift in place, changing before he could get a better look. Because after a moment, the pair seemed to agree on something and started to rummage through the room.

“The faster we find it, the faster you can go back to your dreadful music,” the woman said. She didn’t bother looking up from the paper basket she'd just turned over, spilling its contents across the floor.

There was no reply but he saw the man scowl and his fists clench, ripping a page out of a book he'd been holding in the process.

Soon, he'd located his grandma on the sofa, staring blankly at the TV. Her mouth hung slightly open with awe or shock, her arms spread a little too wide, hanging loose beside her. Jon felt a sickening wave of nausea rush through him. It was as if she couldn't see that room wasn't empty and that books and magazines were being plucked off the shelves and piled on every surface available.

He didn’t know what time it was, only that the curtains had been pulled shut and the wall mounted clock was silent, its hands still. Probably too late for him to be gripped by anxiety and unwilling to move.

Jon knew he should move -- that he should take off towards the entryway and call the emergency services the way he’d been taught. Instead, he watched the man and the woman tear the dining room apart for what felt like far too long.

He couldn’t imagine there being any books left in the entire house until the man crouched to look under the table. Between sturdy mahogany legs and the wall -- where Jon and his friend had built one of their many forts -- he retrieved a little tome. Vague memories of having used the nondescript book as support for pillows and cardboard boxes fleeted across his mind. It hadn’t seemed important.

It still didn’t and Jon had never been able to explain why he acted the way he did then.

“Here, the cover was replaced. It’s… new,” the man said quietly, clearly unhappy about something Jon could not perceive.

“Interesting, one of them must’ve used it before dumping it again. It doesn’t matter, the poor fools in that shop have no idea what they had in their hands. Bring it here.”

“I am. And unless you want to open it here, you’ll wait.”

The man held the book loosely between his tattooed fingers and had been in the process of handing it over to the woman when Jon flew across the room. 

“No! It's my book!”

Jon didn’t remember opening his mouth.

He didn’t fly, either. Couldn’t have. But that’s all he remembered. He was much smaller and faster and the man’s grip just hadn’t been strong enough, so that when they collided, the book fell against Jon’s chest, knocking the wind out of him.

His memories of what happened afterwards were jagged and sharp, fragmented like shards of glass.

Reflexively, Jon yanked the book open. He was on his knees though he didn’t remember collapsing, fingers gripping the edges of a cover too warm and oddly furred to be comfortable. It reminded him of one of those children’s books with felted pages, only instead of soft wool, stiff bristles poked his fingers.

Voices rang above him, muffled as if spoken through too many layers of fabric, or water. Their tone was not concerned -- not for him, at least -- but quickly grew more panicked, rushed and, somehow, breathless. Jon ignored them, and after a time they stopped, or he simply lost track of them. It was… difficult to tell.

“Pull him out now and he will die,” he heard, very faintly.

“Damn you and your fucking books!”

Something heavy settled on his shoulders but instead of surprise, there was a brief moment in which his mind acknowledged that yes, its weight felt right . It was how it should’ve always been.

Jon stared down at the open book, and a mirror stared back at him. Well, the picture of one. Reflected within its frame was a wall-mounted deer head, antlers stretching as wide as the page itself, contained only by the paper’s edges.  He’d never seen anything like it before outside of old films, and couldn’t tell if it was a mediocre copy of a photograph or a very good drawing. Or something else altogether.

Page after page after page contained exactly the same picture of the same mirror, with the same deer staring ahead, its smooth black eyes somehow both devoid of life and sparkling with intelligence. If the book had ever included any text, it had long been replaced by that single, continuous image.

There was nothing for Jon to read, but he remembered knowing he had to finish browsing through the book. That he needed to give in to the dread slowly building in his stomach and the pang  -- fight or flight panic -- at the back of his neck, replacing every thread of warmth in his body with a terrible cold.

Jon was fairly sure that, had he done that, he’d have been too dead to tell the tale. Not that the alternative had been pleasant.

What happened wasn’t at all subtle, unlike the book and its mirror. For the most part, the deer remained the same. Parts of its mottled fur appeared more vibrant between pages, as if the scene’s lighting had changed ever so slightly, but even that was something Jon only noticed much later when trying to recall the incident’s details.

Back then, he didn’t see the differences. Or notice the huge creature before him until it had lifted him into the air and almost impaled him to the wall with its poor imitation of antlers. It couldn’t have been a deer and it wasn’t really there. Neither was anyone else. The room was bereft of life and Jon was alone, save for the black coat thrown over him, and that book.

It wasn’t anything Jon had ever seen before. That much was clear. Its body was long, half upright, flickering in the shadows. A tangle of needle-sharp horns erupted from halfway up its skull, pinning Jon and tearing through his pajamas. Its eyes were still ink-black, sparkling with the lust for a successful hunt; for a kill. Hooves clattered against the floor -- there was no carpet, it couldn’t still be his grandma’s living room, right? -- and the book slipped from Jon’s hands as pain exploded all over his chest.

He screamed.

Jon’s senses blurred together after that. The pain was real, and so were the shouts and the movement all over him, and the sirens, but it wasn’t until later he was told what actually happened. Firm hands held him down and in some of his dreams, Jon thought he heard that strange tattooed man tell him something, his voice a whisper against all the noise. He couldn’t remember what was said, only that it’d soothed some of his nightmares away.

When he woke up, it was to the scent of lemon floor cleaner and a steady beep by his side. It was distractingly bright, no shadows lingering anywhere save for the small nooks Jon couldn’t see into. Transparent tubes ran up the length of his arm, hanging askew towards the wall, and he felt far too exhausted to struggle.

A burglary gone wrong. That was the story repeated to him by the doctors, the nice policewoman who took his statement at the hospital, even his own grandma.

She had seen it with her own eyes: the man and the woman, tearing through the house in search of valuables, holding her a terrified hostage in her own home. It wasn’t until Jon had sleepily wandered into the living room that she’d found the strength -- or the will perhaps, to fight them off. In the confusion that ensued, one of them had smacked Jon, slammed him into the wall hard enough to crack ribs, although it wasn’t until his head hit the floor that he’d started to lose consciousness.

Jon fought this version of the events. Somewhere, in a dusty police archive or an old hard drive,  the account of his twelve year old self is stored, rife with monsters and magic mirrors and the ramblings of a child .

Of course no one believed him.

His grandma entertained the story the same way a reader entertains a work of fiction. She went as far as signing him up for a couple of the paid trauma counseling sessions suggested to violent crime victims, probably hoping it’d help. In the end, they only served to deepen the rift between them; between what he’d seen and what she knew had happened.

After a while, he wasn’t even sure he believed himself anymore.

There was no book. There had never been any book . As far as Jon could tell, only his memories of it remained, and if the police followed up on his grandma’s shopping receipts from around the time of his birthday, nothing ever came out of it. And he wasn’t sure they’d bothered. No suspects were ever apprehended, either. As it turned out, both Jon’s and his grandma’s descriptions were too vague -- flimsy, as if seen through a dream’s lenses -- and with no evidence other than his injuries, the case was dropped after a short investigation.

Not that there was much to investigate. Nothing had been taken from the house.

As a matter of fact, instead of stealing, it seemed the thieves had forgotten -- or just left -- something behind: a heavy, black trench coat. It wasn’t unique or in any way remarkable, dark and clean and anonymous, discardable. Jon knew he’d seen the man wearing it and his grandma disagreed. The only mention of it in her version of the story was that Jon had, somehow, been taken to the hospital with it wrapped around his shoulders.

By the time Jon realized he wanted to keep it, the coat was gone. And gone with it was the comfort of knowing what had happened to him was real . That he hadn’t imagined or dreamt it all up in a concussed state.

Part of him had always known that that was the truth, not his grandma’s tale of burglars and violence. That somewhere inside a mirror inside a book lurked a monstrous deer-like creature, hunting its every reader. This was the same part that remembered Mr. Spider, with its echoed long limbs snuffing out his bully’s life like a candle. This part… slumbered as Jon’s injuries healed and he moved on to deal with more important things, such as teenagerhood.

He didn’t forget. Not about the book, or the coat. Nor the man and the woman. But with time came perspective and with perspective, well, what he’d known as the absolute truth slowly turned to doubt.

Eventually, Jon stopped thinking about it at all. He forgot his bully’s name. His hospital stay became a hazy memory. The books? A quirk of an otherwise uneventful life. Not quite forgotten so much as buried so deep in his mind that they seldom came up at all.

Surviving two Leitners hadn’t seemed impressive. It hadn’t seemed anything other than remarkably lucky until after Jon joined the Institute. Later, as the Archivist, he was finally able to put the pieces together. He knew why he’d lived when so many had perished at the hands of these books. He was able to put names and faces to the strangers he’d seen and it hardly mattered, because they were dead. Because despite Knowing what happened to him had been real, that he’d nearly been gored against a wall, it didn’t feel that way. Not anymore.

He’d seen too much, read too much, knew too much. Desensitised, maybe. The word felt right, anyway. There was no time or place for his own monsters when everyone else’s took so much space, so much time and attention. So much out of him.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t notice the signs he was heading towards another disaster until far too late. Maybe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon actually gets captured by the Hunt and goes through some... not very nice things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the slightly early new chapter. I'd rather update them on the weekends than the middle of the week as that's much easier for me so the next one should come next Sunday, etc.
> 
> Adding a couple new tags to this chapter. Also be warned there is eye trauma and general torture shenanigans taking place!

Rural Canada was not what Jon had expected.

Truth be told he hadn’t expected much. Maybe that’s what surprised him the most.

Despite being smaller than some of the towns he’d visited in England, Grande Prairie was impressive, and beautiful. It was also much sparser, and greener than he could’ve imagined.

Instead of being clustered around a central area, the whole city spanned as far as the eye could see, rows of houses interspersed with plots of forest and a hint of blue where lakes and a reservoir broke through the woods.

Grande Prairie wasn’t just a far cry from the bustling metropolis he’d lived in for the past decade, it was something else, something he’d never seen or visited before. It was wide and not-quite empty and when he inhaled the crisp early-Autumn air, it was heavy with a scent Jon didn’t recognize.

 _Is this it?_ He stared at the vast, flat landscape around him after his plane touched down.

In itself, the city was hardly equipped for the kind of research he needed to do, but that was more of a flaw with the Institute’s roots over the world than with Grande Prairie itself -- who’d have expected a building full of supernatural researchers in the middle of next to nowhere? Still, after giving himself a couple hours to rest, Jon had found the local public library more than up to his needs. It was cozy and silent. Just perfect.

With a hot mug of acceptably decent tea -- thought it only made him miss Martin’s cuppas more -- he’d settled down in a corner and gone through his notes. There were no statements taking place in the city itself, but according to Melanie, a fair few of the old unrecorded accounts had their location in Alberta.

None of them made much sense when hastily transcribed over the phone, and that was being quite generous to the nature and tone of the statements he’d been chasing across the globe.

Gertrude had been right here and Jon had no idea why. Well, maybe not in the library itself, but she might as well have been, given how delightfully straightforward her travels were. _If only she had thought to leave her travel planner behind,_ Jon thought.

In spite of everything, that had him grinning against the rim of his cup.

As far as he knew, Gertrude had checked out a number of buildings in the area, mostly within the city proper, which meant that, thankfully, none were too far into the Canadian wilderness. He’d already put together an incomplete map of her travels, Known from some of the people he’d talked on his way from the airport and the clerks at the hotel she’d stayed in. He’d jotted down what route to take and was about to get his laptop to check for any possible clues -- Google Maps & satellite view hadn’t let him down yet -- when something, rather, the lack of something caught his eye.

The map was old and Jon had scribbled over most of it in pen, which made it all the more obvious.

At some point after leaving the US, Gertrude had searched through Grande Prairie and there must’ve been a good reason for that. Jon knew it was a big assumption, but it wasn’t like she’d come up here on a holiday, right? So, it was either very suspicious or a complete red herring that she’d missed one of the city’s sectors entirely.

Or that she visited without ever bringing it up, unlike every other location worth mentioning in Grande Prairie.

Knowing this wasn’t useful, not exactly. Still, it was odd. And Jon’s travels had mostly consisted of stringing together bits and pieces of the unknown and hoping that the big picture made some damned sense.

He was months into this quest and three continents later, he still didn’t know what the Unknowing was or what sort of role he would have in stopping it. Yes, he’d take anything odd and he’d run with it. And if Grande Prairie didn’t pan out, Jon was sure Elias would send him on another wild goose chase soon enough.

Jon propped the laptop open and waited for his programs to open. A headache brewed between his temples, behind his eye sockets.

He hadn’t even realized his life was taken by the Beholding until he was thousands of miles away from everyone he’d ever known and he still didn’t feel, or know that his flat in London was home.  Alone, staring into a screen for directions, the thought sunk like a stone. _When did I last have a home?_  It was followed by _Does it even matter? I’ve got no time for this._

He wrote down an address -- one of the only shops in the area that could contain something useful for Gertrude -- and leaned back on his chair. No, he did not have time for nostalgia, or for thinking things through while some esoteric entity hung over his head like the metaphorical Reaper.

Besides, Crystal Lake didn’t sound like a bad place this time of the year.

Jon wasn’t entirely wrong on either account. The lake was lovely. It was still too warm for its surface to freeze over and its entire length was perfectly still, waters breached by nothing but a few birds paddling in the shallows where weeds grew taller and thicker. It reminded him of those few days of clear skies in the summer in Bournemouth, when the wind died out and the ocean glittered like a thousand diamonds scattered over the horizon. Like crystal.

By the time he’d arrived at his destination overseeing the lake, the sun had only just started on its downwards journey across the skyline. It was early enough, Jon had decided, to investigate the Crystal Lake residential area. And if, as he guessed, there was nothing of interest in the single antiques shop he thought Gertrude had visited, then well, tomorrow he could scour the rest of the city.

It wasn’t a complete waste of his time, but the smell of dust and old dried animal fur inside the shop only worsened his headache. Old wooden chairs and chests littered every corner and the walls -- that is, if there was /any/ wall left behind the number of taxidermied beasts staring down at him-- had long been covered in as many of these /things/ as the shop’s owner could find. Price tags floated in the wake of his steps, strings too worn to be visible inside the dimly lit room.

The young woman manning the counter hadn’t seen Gertrude. She hadn’t even been working there when the old Archivist had visited and had no idea what she might’ve wanted in the shop. It was an irritating, pointless exercise in frustration and Jon didn’t realize he’d used his Voice until she’d nodded mechanically and turned him towards the back: a single pitiful line of books was stacked on a shelf, their spines cracked and bent, but clean. Still, whatever hope he had died as Jon read along their covers.

He couldn’t suppress a groan and a wince when the movement made his head throb.

“Is this it?” he called towards the centre of the room. _Meditations on Hunting_ by José Ortega y Gasset stared at him. Next to it, _The Way of the Woods_ by Edward Breck stood out, as did a couple other books on hunting or dressing fresh kills. None of which offered a hint for Gertrude’s possible visit.

The Hunt was a power this side of the ocean, Jon knew that. But if it was at all connected to the Stranger and its Unknowing, he hadn’t the faintest clue how.

“I’m sorry, that’s every book we’ve currently got in stock,” the woman replied. She had no name tag and honestly, Jon wasn’t sure he needed to know.

He looked up. There was no computer system he could see. Nothing but an old till sat on a brown desk, surrounded by paperwork. “Are you sure? I’m looking for-”

“Something unusual. So you’ve said. There are plenty of unusual things here,” she said and Jon watched her wave one arm at the walls. She wasn’t wrong. “Not many of which are books. If you haven’t found what you’re looking for, I can only apologize, but there aren’t any others.”

Jon sighed and the irritation deflated out of him, leaving only weariness in its wake. “Sorry, I’m just used to… things not being organized. Can you check for anyone who’s bought any books recently? Well, for the past couple of years, ideally. I don’t need their names, just the books’.”

He watched her hesitate and her jaw clench. “We’re about to close.”

He had no idea what she was doing, only that her hands moved quickly behind the counter. Typing on a tablet’s screen, perhaps?

“I can pay.” When Elias had handed him a sleek Institute credit card, he’d seen it as the bribe it was. He just hadn’t _imagined_ using it as one. “If that’s the issue here, I can compensate you for the time spent searching.”

She nodded, slowly. “It might take a while. Some of the old records haven’t been filed yet and, like I said, we’re about to close.”

“I will come back tomorrow, around this time,” he suggested. “Is that enough time?” _It would have to be_ , Jon told himself. He’d only planned to stay in Grande Prairie for however long it took him to search the city, a couple of days, maybe a week at worst.

“Probably. I really won’t know until I start looking,” she said without looking at him, a small pleased smile on her face. Then she added, “It should be, there haven’t been many books sold from here.”

Jon felt a little relieved _._ “Thank you,” he said. He hadn’t expected much -- he still didn’t know if Gertrude had been here, but it was a start, and more than he could’ve hoped for, for a first foray into the city. “I’ll come back then.”

He turned around, absently rifling through his pockets for the pack of cigarettes he’d bought earlier. A million thoughts ran through his mind, most of which were completely mundane. Like the idea that picking up smoking was what would end him. Like he was _that_ lucky. Like being turned into a mannequin or an eldritch monster wasn’t several degrees worse than dying of lung cancer.

Through the shop front, partially blocked by old blinds, the setting sun cast strips of red light across the mounted animals. Plastic eyes shone with lifelike realism and in their open mouths, Jon saw teeth glisten wetly. Shivers shot up his back and he left quickly after that.

“Have a good hunt.” Jon heard her call out to him as the door clicked shut.

He stiffened. It was slightly suspicious and a little _creepy_ , sure. But between enjoying the cool October breeze and going back inside the stifling shop, the choice was clear. Besides, Grande Prairie was known for its hunting circuit. And as far as Jon knew, she’d thought he was just another clueless stranger looking to get a grip of the basics.

Him, a hunter? “Good Lord, I need a break.” Jon sighed around the end of his cigarette and inhaled. He made a mental note not to forget his tape recorder the next day, just in case.

Smoke flooded his lungs in a dizzying rush. He closed his eyes, relaxed a little, and when he opened them, Crystal Lake stretched before him again, its waters dark and peaceful, streaked crimson.

Not many people crossed his path as he circled the lake and it wasn’t until he came to a walkway by the shore that Jon noticed he was completely alone and that the road before him was enveloped in shadows. Night fell quickly at this latitude and he wasn’t surprised -- or wary, at least, not of the trees or the water. Despite his misgivings with the antiques shop, the city had a kind of benevolent, or at least passive presence to it. 

In fact, the cigarette had its intended effect in soothing his nerves and helping with the headache, and Jon only felt something might be wrong with his perception a little later. He walked through a small gate and an archway, and then… walked through it again.

He paused. That was when he first heard it. And when he smelled it.

It was… a wave of dry heat, if heat were a scent and a sound, not a physical sensation. Musky and hot and loud, cutting through the night’s chill, creeping from every direction until Jon was left stunned and breathless in the dark. He almost didn’t recognize it at first; it was so much stronger than back in the shop -- dust and fur and sweat all rolled up in one terrifying miasma.

Jon staggered forward. He reached up to squeeze his throat and higher, gasping desperately around fingers in his mouth, like it might help block out the smell; like it might help him breathe. Tears stung, unshed in his eyes, and when he gagged, nothing came up -- that was when the howling started.

He tried to focus; to remember which way was _back_ , and which direction led closer to the lake. It was useless in the dark, when half of him was more interested in surviving than escaping. Still, he ran. Tripping over rocks and fallen branches, sloshing through wet mud until his hands were raw and white spots twinkled in the edges of his vision.

Jon didn’t know how long he’d been running for.

It shouldn’t have been possible, of course. Each of the residential areas surrounding Crystal Lake were located within walking distance -- he knew this; he’d stared at the maps for long enough -- and it felt like so much longer. Jon felt like he’d been going on without oxygen for hours. His muscles burned, his trousers were soaked through and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was close to passing out.

That was the exactly moment when it stopped: when the smell dissipated just long enough for him to catch a much needed breath. It was also when he heard her.

“That’s enough for now. Get him,” someone shouted.

Something had been tracking him. Jon heard it everytime it moved. Its feral howls and obscene grunts erupted from the darkness around him and kept him running. It chased him through the woods, hot on his trail, barely keeping its distance. And that, Jon belatedly realised - like it hadn't been obvious at all - had been its attempt at tiring him out.

When it finally closed in on him, it was with such astonishing speed and strength that he barely had the time to think before he was shoved to the ground by a grip on his head. A hot breath puffed against the back of his neck and something sharp and heavy - perhaps limbs? - skittered over his chest and held him down.

 _It succeeded_ , were the only words in Jon's mind as he was crushed under the monster's weight. Until his gasps died on his tongue and wetness ran down his jaw. And he didn't know if those were his own tears or the monster's saliva dripping on him. Or worse, his own blood.

 

\---

 

The hollow tapping of cloven feet over a hard floor was what first clued Jon in to his new surroundings. He woke with a cry, immediately aware of the way he was awkwardly suspended. Instead of mulch and dirt, his bare toes brushed what he could only describe as cold tile, though it was impossible to tell for sure. It was too bright to see.

That was his second clue. A beam of light shone directly into his eyes, bathing the world in a clinical whitewash. It drowned out the fine details of the room but Jon didn’t need them to _Know_ he wasn’t in Grande Prairie anymore, nowhere near the woods. He didn’t need to see the creature pacing in the corner to be able to tell what it would do to him.

He blinked several times, struggling, slowly at first, against the rope holding his wrists together somewhere above his head. His every muscle was pulled taut, stretched like a wire. His body fought to support its own weight, shifting and trembling like it would help him withstand the intense pressure placed upon him.

In this position, Jon couldn’t even breathe properly. His mouth hung open and he gasped, biting back on the urge to be sick.

There were others -- maybe -- suspended alongside him, rows of bodies whose silhouettes he could barely make out, hanging from a ceiling so brightly lit no shadows ever reached the floor. Jon couldn’t tell if they were still alive; worse, he couldn’t tell if they were even human at all. Panic seized his chest and for a very long moment, Jon wondered if the creature had heard his heartbeat thundering inside him and if it was finally coming to end him. But even that thought was short lived, dulled away by a creeping lightheadedness.

Jon had been taken before, more times than he cared to admit. He drew in a shaky breath; the air around him was warm and inviting. Behind him, the wall offered next to no support, barely enough to keep him conscious as shapes moved around him.

When something burned his collarbone, Jon focused. It was a familiar sensation, and though it was nothing compared to Jude’s handshake -- a sizzling sting accompanying that familiar sweet smell of burnt meat and a cloud of smoke -- he must’ve tried to pull away from it, because the movement sent ripples of pain down his forearms.

“Good, you’re awake,” a voice called out. “That’s really good, any longer and we’d start getting really close to brain injury territory. And trust me, no one wants to hunt a vegetable, they just lay there and let themselves be shot.”

Even if he’d been able to see clearly, Jon wouldn’t have known where to look. He was effectively blind and the familiar voice rung from every direction at once.

“Not that it’s not fun. They like it very much, but I suppose this isn’t about them -- or you, to be honest. I’m sure you understand.”

There was another sting and another hiss of crackling skin, this time against the crook of his neck, an inch below his ear. Back arching, he tried to scramble away from it.

“Oh, this reminds me. I found your cigarettes. Sorry about that, I don’t think you’ll be needing them anytime soon, though,” she said in the exact same tone she’d used back in the shop, bored with a touch of resentment. Like she didn’t want to be doing this anymore than Jon wanted to be tortured. “Think of it as a favour, these things would’ve killed you one day, you know?”

He shook his head, desperately forcing the words out. “No-- I don’t-- I… who are you?”

Jon didn’t yell until the tip of the cigarette was pressed between his lips, towards the inside of his mouth. When he opened them, it extinguished itself on his tongue. He tasted hot ash and tar and the metal pang of blood.

She sighed. “Now, it’s not that your voice _won’t_ work on me -- I actually wouldn’t know, never tried it -- but seriously, this is going to go so much better if you don’t say anything. And if I gag you you’ll just pass out in a minute, so I’d rather not have to do that. Okay?”

Through the agony in his face, Jon wasn’t sure he managed to nod. Bile rose in his throat and he was acutely aware of the globs of drool rolling down his chin. It seemed to satisfy her though, and he heard the flick of a lighter followed by another sigh.

“Good, it’s good we understand each other. Although I have to be honest, I didn’t expect the Archivist to be so… you know, clueless?”

At that, Jon whined and the sound was just as pitiful as he felt. It wasn’t an unfair assumption; he seemed to take the art -- or sport, or whatever it was -- of stumbling from danger to danger to a new level with each statement read.

Beside him, there was a shuffle. Something heavy pressed itself against his side. He felt fur and claws rake over his shoulders and what he could only assume was an animal’s wet nose against his jaw.

“No? I guess it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Oh look, Sam likes you.” She added, “He’s new, still too human to hunt. Not that I expect you to understand.”

The creature rumbled and for just a moment, he felt some sort of kinship towards it. Was it even its fault it was stuck here? Probably not. Jon couldn’t quite imagine this kind of willing submission to a Power, not when it meant becoming a monster.

 _Like I am,_ he thought and tried to swallow, muscles moving around the remnants of ash in his mouth.

When Jon remained mostly silent, she continued. “Anyway, you asked who I was, right? I could tell you my name, but I’m sure you haven't heard it before. If you really must know, it’s Carla. Or it was, before… you know, before I became _better_. Like you’ll be, if you stop fighting it.”

Jon found that he couldn’t really express himself coherently. He squeezed his eyes shut and grunted. It was only half successful and the creature beside him made the most pathetic keening noise back at him.

“Does _he_ even tell you anything? Never mind that. You do know why you are here, right? Why your boss, or well, whoever he is to you, wanted you right here? Or did you think it was a happy coincidence?”

Truth be told, Jon would rather not know those things. He didn't need to think through the halo of sticky white pain to know exactly whom she meant. Or the sort of things Elias had done and would do for the sake of his Beholding. Their Beholding.

“It was a trap from the beginning, and I guess the fact you still fell in it means that you're not ready yet. Though I have to give you some credit for finding me immediately. I thought we'd have some fun hunting you, get Sam here some experience, but no. We’ll fix that.” A breath or two later and Jon felt her finish another cigarette on his chest. He barely had the strength left to groan.

“Just stay still.”

Carla whistled. It wasn't a sound Jon had heard often before, long and shrill, raw at the edges, and so loud it hurt his ears. It reminded him of those brittle bone whistles, or flutes, he’d once heard in a demonstration at the British Museum. His heart sped up in his chest, breath quickened slightly, and Jon knew he didn't have very long before he lost consciousness again.

Around him, the room moved. He couldn’t see it, not until the lights all dimmed and the vague idea of formless shapes coalesced into something solid. Even then, Jon couldn’t tell for sure what they were. Instead, his sight was drawn to the walls and the endless rows of things hanging -- no, mounted there. He’d thought them human, and maybe, they had once been. Now, all that was left were those eyes, open and wide, reflecting Jon’s alarm back at him. Each pair of them stared down, unblinking, strangely aware of his suffering.

Jon heaved. He struggled to turn his head, to look away as a wave of nausea threatened to wash over him. That was when Carla’s hand closed around his jaw, holding his head in place.

“I’m not liable for what will happen if you move too much. Your boss wouldn’t want that, right? I mean, do you really want to die?”

Jon had no way of answering. His wrists chafed and every time he shifted position, his feet touched the floor, granting him a second of relief before he was yanked back up and his joints popped.

“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said.

The tips of her fingers were cold against his skin but they moved upwards, over his lips and across his tear-streaked cheeks and the movement was almost soothing. At least until her nails dug under his eyelid, forcing one of his eyes open.

“This is going to make for a pretty boring hunt, but if it’s what your Elias wants, then that’s that. I don’t get to make the rules, you know? Well, not all of them.”

There was some sort of long plastic object in her hand. Jon’s vision blurred in the gloom, burnt by too long staring at the light and it wasn’t until it came close to his face that he was able to tell what it was: some sort of pipette or eye dropper. Within sloshed a clear liquid.

Jon’s thoughts were sluggish, hindered by sheer exhaustion and a persistent lack of oxygen. There was nothing he could do to stop her, no way to move from her grip or, if that were possible, escape the litany of growls around them.

It burned. Not like a cigarette, it wasn’t hot or cold. There was no smell, nothing but pain digging deeper and deeper into his skull. Jon breath hitched violently. He cried, sobbed against his restraints, and his tears were acid rolling down his face.

 

\---

 

Jon was a boneless heap on the floor. His hands had been cut free and both hung limp -- skin raw against his chest. He didn’t know how long he’d been crumpled there, only that this “Sam” creature had left him alone and the room was still dark.

Not that it mattered. He’d looked down at himself and seen nothing where his skin was meant to be. Hints of detail his damaged eyes couldn’t really grasp at, twirling with the lack of substance.

Jon didn’t know what to feel, if he felt anything at all. Carla was still there. He didn’t need to see her to feel her presence the same way he felt the icy tile under his bare legs. But he looked and he saw shadows where she was meant to sit, stretching in opposite directions. They moved without really… going anywhere, folding and disappearing within themselves. Jon wasn’t sure if those were the effects of the chemicals in his eyes or the Beholding. Or both.

“I can only assume it worked, since you’re not dead,” he heard her say, imagined her pressing her lips together. “Now that the worst is over, we can finally have some fun. It’s sad I don’t get to keep you for too long, but I understand there are more important things at stake than us.”

Awareness flickered through his mind, memories from before the pain had started. If this avatar knew something about the Unknowing, it was his job to question her. Or it had been. Jon wasn’t sure of much anymore, least of all his loyalties.

He opened his mouth or tried to, and was rewarded with a deep growl and a hard smack to his face. Heat poured from the slashes on his cheek.

“No, no. No speaking, remember?”

The creature standing before him was oddly visible and it was only when he forced his eyes shut and the image didn’t subside, that Jon took the vision for what it was: thoughts forced inside his head by an outside force, so stark and clear everything else faded in comparison.

He was made to see as his own sight failed. And the beast before him grew, but not in size, only in Jon’s awareness of it. It was vaguely humanoid. Like puzzle pieces assembled _wrong._ A long skeletal face, shiny black nose at its end, and tangled antlers jutting from its skull. He recognized it immediately. He knew its name.

The sheer volume of information hurt his head.

The creature advanced upon him with predatory calm. There were others, Jon didn’t know how many. He couldn’t see them. Claws and hooves tapped circles around him, close enough that he felt their rotten breath on his wounds, just fast enough that when he tried to focus, there was nothing but a blurry mass in its direction.

Carla stood up, Jon’s heard the metal chair scrape the floor and winced. “Well, that’s quite enough, I’m sure you’re having a wonderful time laying there, but the truth is, that’s pretty boring. Wallowing in pain and all that. You’ll have more time for that later.”

Behind him, a door opened and what must’ve been sunlight flooded the room. Pinpricks of heat caressed Jon’s back and he turned, slow and exhausted, to face… nothing. Well, he felt the breeze, heard bird calls in the distance and the rustle of canopies somewhere above him, and through it all, darkness reigned. Maybe it wasn’t darkness at all. He couldn’t quite tell the difference.

“Go on,” Carla told him. “Get up, run.”

Her shoes nudged Jon’s foot and he startled upwards at the sudden pressure. There was no sensation left in his body and he wasn’t sure whether to be thankful for that or not.

Only the adrenaline thrumming in his veins kept him standing. His tongue was dry, and the blood on his lips had nearly glued them shut. Compelling someone into compliance had never felt so appealing, and so impossible.

His awareness of Carla was a flickering thing. He knew where she stood, too close to him, but couldn’t remember any of her features anymore than he could see. Because it wasn’t night out and he was blind.

“Come on, don’t just stand there.”

When he didn’t make a move to obey the order, she clicked her tongue loudly and kicked his shin. “Now, don’t tell me that’s your best try? Do you really want it to catch you so easily? You really should be running already.”

Jon ran, or tried to. It wasn’t even the fear of being caught that kept him stumbling onward and, after a tumble, crawling past prickly bushes and tree roots that gouged his palms open. It was the knowledge that if he died here, no one but Elias would ever know what had happened -- not Tim or Melanie or Martin. Georgie would worry, he thought.

 

\---

 

Eventually, the creatures caught up to him.

Jon didn’t fight back. He was slung over strong furred shoulders and dragged back; suspended and clawed and burned until his only respite were brief moments of breathless unconsciousness before his punishment started again.

There was no rhyme or reason to it, nothing with which Jon could’ve kept track of the time he spent in that room, or running through the woods. And Carla was always careful not to hurt him _too_ badly. Pushing him past his limits only enough that when he returned, the flow of outside information in his mind increased a little bit.

In bits and pieces, through the weariness, Jon became aware of his surroundings.

He was turned loose, over and over, only to be caught -- what felt like -- endlessly. Even the hunters themselves seemed to know when it was their turn to hunt him, and more than once he Knew a glimpse of -- caution, maybe -- in their feral demeanour, as they dragged him back.

He was hurt again and then, the cycle repeated itself. Sometimes he was given water or what he could only assume was food was shoved down his throat. Sometimes he was led outside and hosed clean.  Months -- years could have passed and he wouldn’t have known.

Somehow, somewhere, he knew -- or felt -- Elias’ pleasure.

Jon didn’t know many times he’d run away from an invisible pack of beasts, grunting and howling and clawing their way through the woods.

Until he stopped trying to escape.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams. They mean something, right?

_ Jon sits across from Elias, a desk between them, its width sturdy and impassable. It’s bright red, he notices. There are arms crossed against his chest and Jon doesn’t feel like they are his own. He looks down and sees nothing but the chair he’s sitting on. His body is light and insubstantial and utterly empty.  _

_ “I have to admit, this is more than I could have hoped for in such a short time,” Elias is saying. “I’m proud of you, Jon.”  _

_ Jon shakes his head, there’s a desperate cry trying to burst free from inside him. No. No. “I didn’t want this! You know I didn’t want this, you can just stop for a moment and--” _

_ “You know I can’t bring you back. That’s not how it works.” _

_ There’s a chessboard on the desk. Jon watches as Elias pushes one of the pieces forward -- the Bishop.  _

_ “You don’t know what it’s like! I didn’t go out there to be… taken prisoner!” _

_ Elias sighs. “I’ve been very patient with you, Jon. Your powers were grossly inadequate to deal with the Stranger. Was that not clear the last time we talked? I can not afford anymore delays and now, you’re finally back on track.”  _

_ Elias’ Queen has been toppled by a white Knight, and is removed from the game to a corner of the desk. When he focuses, Jon can see older pieces -- ivory carvings caked with dust and almost shapeless in disuse. One of the Rooks is carved in the shape of a spiral crawling up the tower like a serpent.  _

_ “Please.” Jon knows he shouldn’t beg. _

_ His arms are motionless still, they refuse to obey his urge to move, to slam his fists on the desk and draw a reaction from Elias. _

_ Elias doesn’t react and the Bishop moves again. Jon sees it slide across the board, propelled by black-gloved fingers. As it touches the white Pawn opposite, it… shifts, rippling into something new: a deformed King, edges jutting wrong, its crown round and shiny like a bulging eye.    
_

_ Jon knows, then. It’s too obvious to ignore. He doesn’t need to hear it. _

_ But Elias tells him anyway, “You may never come to trust me. That’s perfectly fine, Jon. I don’t need your personal appreciation of my work here. But I do hope that one day you’ll realise that I’ve done this only for your own good.” _

_ Jon shakes his head. Tears fall and rise from his eyes, glinting in the space between them. The room has no walls and Jon’s chair is a throne. _

_ “Please, I can’t--”  _

_ Elias interrupts him. There’s a smile on his face. “And when it’s over, remember who made you what you are.” _

_ “Elias!” _   
  


\---

 

In his dreams, Jon still ran. 

Not all of them. 

None were quite as vivid as Elias’ nightmare. Most faded away quickly, their memories nothing but wisps of knowledge that insisted on escaping between his fingers. 

His torment was inescapable and unyielding, just another facet of his daily life. His legs, his arms, his whole body had long since started to waste away, and whenever possible, he’d falter a couple steps outside and collapse, waiting no time at all before he was dragged back and punished. 

But during those fleeting moments in which he was allowed to  _ really _ sleep, he dreamt. And in a few of those dreams, he had never stopped trying to escape -- or maybe, he’d always been free. 

In his dreams, Jon had his sight back. Not always. Often, they’d consist of nothing but flickers of awareness in the periphery of his vision, little brushes of a consciousness against his. Sometimes panic gripped his chest and he fled, reality blurring into a terrifying picture. But sometimes, he  _ saw _ in colourful glory; the boreal forest and its hue of greens and browns and oranges; the room, even the creatures -- slimmer, sleek black in broad daylight. 

In others, he faced his captor, bound and broken. His mouth smoothed out of existence; unable to utter a word. Often enough, he would be back in that room, with that desk and those chess pieces. He’d listen to words that made no sense, to a conversation that inevitably ended with Jon’s horror taking shape. 

Those, he always remembered. 

In some of his dreams, he saw someone else. He saw  _ him. _

At first, Jon didn’t recognize the man. He was formless, inconsequential, just another part of his torture: being aware of the observers in his sleep, watching them from such a distance it took Jon’s breath away. 

It wasn’t until Jon caught himself noticing those same brushstrokes of attention during his waking times that he realised his own transformation was well underway. And by then, he was too broken to fight. 

Elias’ presence was a thorn in the back of his mind, a constant throb that seemed to fade the more he focused on it, as if drawing away from Jon’s own touch. There were eight creatures living with, he felt them clearly. They radiated hunger and madness and it was only their own faint hierarchy -- the remnant of humanity in them -- that kept them from attacking each other or Jon.

Carla he barely felt. Whenever she was in the room with him, her voice washed every other connection until he wasn’t even the Archivist, only the Hunt’s terrified prey. In a way, Jon started to look forward to those times, when he could suffer and wish for it all to just end.

It was one of those times when he first heard  _ him. _

Until then, Jon’s senses had been limited to seeing or feeling; recognising words were beyond his reach. 

He had been dragged up and made to stand against a deep wooden panel while cold metal -- rods, probably -- ran under each arm and were strapped to his wrists, keeping them apart and mounted like a toy in a shadowbox, or some sort of insect. Alone, the thought of it had him shuddering, if not with pain, then with shame.

Carla stood before him and Jon didn’t need to see to hear the smile in her words. “You look good like this.” She touched his face and Jon recoiled, emotion he didn’t know was left in him boiling to the surface. “How does it feel, Archivist? To be the one watched? To be observed? Everything that makes you  _ you _ on display?”

Jon’s breath hitched in his throat and he bit down on his burnt lips to keep himself from replying. And when a harsh male voice echoed across the room, he jolted, his eyes cast upward to look for a person he couldn’t and would never see. 

“I’m coming,” the voice said. “Look out for me.”

Carla didn’t react, at least not to the voice. She laughed, the kind of sound that made Jon shiver, and ran long fingers down his arms, tightening the straps that kept his limbs in place. Then she hummed, and he could feel her watching him with intent and satisfaction that had his skin tightening and prickling with discomfort. The blindness only made it worse, and goosebumps erupted down his torso when she didn’t look away. 

Jon didn’t think she’d heard him, whoever he was, and his… hallucination only became obvious when it happened again.

It was a bit like a radio, slightly off-tune. Jon didn’t understand all of it. The man’s accent was familiar -- English, if his memory could still be trusted -- and he caught words here and there but not their meaning; nothing much aside from the soft lull of falling words in a soothing tongue, their steady cadence a comfort.

Jon tried to focus on them, but it was only when Carla finally left the room that he finally forced himself to relax and to listen -- it was less tortuous this way and he had no idea how long he’d be left hanging there, for all to see.

At one point, one of the creatures came to sniff him. Jon slumped back, motionless against the wooden board, and he listened until, eventually, his awareness faded.

It was such a strange sensation, to dream but  _ not _ . To be touched by his own fingers and  _ not really _ . Jon almost jerked out of himself and watched as the colours leached from his vision.

Jon felt one of his arms rise, hands reaching out towards empty air as a jolt of  _ fear _ ran through him -- through them both. “If you go, at least tell me anything that  _ might help _ .”

“I… I don’t know! I…I  can’t see. It’s dark… usually.”

It was weird to admit it out loud, least of all to himself. Jon heard him-them choke out a gasp and the sound was just as much of a cognitive dissonance as cohabiting a single body. He couldn’t tell who had done what or whose emotions ran through his head.

“If you can focus on anything, there are… oh, thousands of bloody cabins scattered in these woods. You have no idea how many hunting resorts and trails and-- Yes. I know who is keeping you. I’ve heard of her before, the Hunt is a rather prominent power in these parts.”

A question rose in his-their mind, mostly unbidden. He wasn’t allowed to speak it.  _ Who are you?  _

“I’m sorry. You can’t control my body, I’m letting you use me. Although it honestly sounds wrong when I put it that way,” he said. “I wish I could tell you who I am, Archivist. I would and I will, soon. Right now… there are others who I’d rather not know what I’m doing.”

“How do you know me?” This time, the man's mouth moved, carrying Jon's words. 

“You're an Archivist, your mind has its own… touch, aura if you want to call it that. It's something I'm familiar with, even if you weren't the one I knew.”

“You knew Gertrude?”

Jon was half aware he was only allowed this question because the mere thought of it sent little joyful tingles running up their legs. It was good to remember something that wasn't his torture, even if it reminded him of his life outside the woods -- of the Institute and every danger within. 

“Don't you think this is a conversation for another time?”

_ Not if it means I get to live a little longer without losing my mind _ , Jon thought. Excitement skittered through them both and they shivered when it collided with steadfast resolve.

The man shook his head, Jon watched him cast his eyes up at the sky. “I could tell you about her now and it'd be time wasted. Later, when your body isn't about to wake up; when your Master isn't lurking in the back of your head.”

Jon didn't want to agree.  _ I don’t have a Master _ , he thought and then, soberly added, _ not willingly.  _

“No, not willingly,” the man repeated. 

“How long has it been? I can't keep going like this… it's-”

“Two weeks. Well, tomorrow will mark two weeks since you vanished without a trace. It must feel like so much longer, Archivist. The Hunt’s sunk her claws in you, but if she wanted you dead, you would be. And…” He paused. “I fear that  _ will  _ happen sooner or later, without intervention.” 

Jon couldn't hear the man's thoughts, only swathes of emotions -- that's how he knew they must be his own. _ I know... you'd prefer it. It's hard when there's no choice left to make _ . 

“There's a room with trophies. That's where she keeps me most of the time,” Jon said, out loud. It surprised him a little. “A door, sunlight, birds sometimes. Nothing helpful.” 

“It’s… not much, yeah, but it will have to be enough until you can hopefully  _ show _ me or I find you, the latter preferably. I'll do what I can from here, in the meantime. If you need me just -- listen.”

“I don’t  _ know _ how!” Jon tried to explain, their body tense. He had no idea what he was doing, he couldn’t-

The man lifted two fingers to his lips, touching gently and silencing him. Jon expected pain and when that never came, he-they exhaled together.

“Whatever happens, I’ll be here,” the man said, speaking against his palm. “You should be going. You’ll need your strength, Archivist.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know. Trust me, I do.”

All of a sudden, like plunging underwater, the difference between dreaming and being coldly aware of his surroundings was stark. Between one heartbeat and another, Jon’s consciousness drew back and his eyes snapped open, awake. There was none of the drowsiness of real sleep, and none of the restfulness that usually accompanied it. 

There was no relief in it, and though the man’s words drifted to the back of his mind, coming back into his own body only emphasised how broken Jon was. He was still pinned like a butterfly to a board, and the room around him was still dark and silent. 

As it turned out, inhabiting another’s body, even if for brief moments, heightened his pain in a way Carla hadn’t managed in days, perhaps. Jon struggled, again and again, against the metal and the straps that kept his arms splayed open; against his own aching muscles that refused to obey his commands. 

Losing the fight was like breaking all over again. And in the distance, echoing from somewhere within the woods, he could imagine he felt the man’s pain. It was a bleak thing, to feel what he felt for him, for what he’d done to both of them; for the fleeting connection neither could break.   
  


\---   
  


Afterwards, Jon tried to pay attention to the little details that escaped between the cracks whenever he focused too hard; to the time and the duration of his captor’s visits; to the different creatures that sometimes wandered in; to anything at all he could use to determine his location.

It was useless, of course. There was nothing at all he could do.

Carla didn't enjoy his newly found attentiveness. That was why she did it, she told Jon. Her thumb ran the underside of his jaw and she squeezed, forcing his lips to part. His eyes had been squirted with whatever chemical kept his raw skin burning, tracking heat and crusted tears down his face. Against his tongue moved what Jon could only imagine was an ice cold needle. 

“It won't keep you from speaking in the future,” she said. “But you've been quite good in that regard, Archivist.”

A sharp sting and moments later, a pleasant numbness rolled across Jon’s face. It was followed by the pressure of something wet and heavy being rested inside his mouth. He swallowed around it, fighting himself not to moan around it when nothing else happened, or at least when nothing  _ painful  _ happened. 

“It will keep you from trying to bite your own tongue off. Believe me, that would  _ not  _ be pleasant for either of us.”

If he had to guess, it felt like Carla was… wiping his face clean. That was the best way Jon could make any sense of it. And instead of a hose, a rag brushed his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, every part of him.    


Jon was barely able to hold onto a single train of thought as the drugs reached his head. He floated, delightfully weightless, barely aware of anything but the utter  _ lack _ of sensation on his face. And how glorious it was, after weeks spent locked within himself.

She moved down, running the cloth up and down across the back of his neck and shoulders and Jon stiffened, just a little. It made no sense. The Hunt and its Mistress had never known  _ gentleness,  _ he Knew this. He had seen this with his own eyes and felt it more times than he could remember.

_ Then why?  _

Before he could catch himself, Jon mumbled around the gag in his mouth, slurring his words uselessly against it. 

Carla didn’t stop. Not when he almost spoke or when the tension returned to his body all at once, skin so tight it could’ve burst. Or when he silently pleaded to whatever mysterious man might be  _ listening _ , for it to stop. 

Instead of punishing his momentary lapse in judgement, she continued, slow and patient. She rubbed the grime off little squares of Jon’s skin, bit by bit, before moving down his arms and between his legs, until the scent of blood dissipated. 

Jon felt clean, like a person again. And that made sheer terror coil in his stomach, hot and cold and nauseating.    


When he tried to speak again, she slapped the side of his head with the cloth. “After all this time, have you learned nothing? Speaking won’t help. It won’t stop me, and you’ll just end up disappointed in yourself.”

She stepped back. Jon realised this was her way of giving him a few moments to try and grasp at the absurdity of the situation, to get the confusion and alarm under control. It lasted no time at all and then she started to untie the straps keeping him bound. His arms hung limp, hands askew.

“Stay standing,” she told him. “If you drop, no one’s going to carry you outside. You do get it, don’t you, Archivist?”

Jon’s knees quaked but he nodded. He was reminded of Elias’ words the last time they’d met and the Knowing that had been forced inside his head; that maybe, this was actually all for his own good. That maybe it would be over soon and Jon would be left stronger for it. 

The flicker of hope died inside of him when Carla pushed him past the door and through a threshold of warm sunlight.    
  


\---   
  


There was a chair. Well, closer to a barstool. Jon didn’t know how he’d found it. He couldn’t see or sense its presence in any way. If he had still believed in that sort of thing, he would’ve thought it just luck. Like he was  _ this  _ lucky. 

It was surrounded by thick swathes of vegetation, practically covered in fallen leaves and bark and what could -- or could not -- be the remnants of a squirrel nest between its legs. Jon dutifully swept it all away with his forearms and crawled onto it. It was awkward, but more comfortable than hanging from his wrists and there was some sort of peace in knowing he was truly alone.

Even if it would last only a few minutes, right there and then, Jon felt like a human being.

He listened to the creatures tear through the forest in search of him. Their grotesque howls of pleasure closed in on him and Jon sighed. It would be over very shortly, he realised. He’d been fed and allowed to rest, and he’d still tired himself out trying to put a fair distance between him and them. It meant nothing at all. It wasn’t an escape. His eyes fell shut in anticipation of his capture.

Something brushed the back of his mind: a wordless connection, carrying with it the knowledge that whoever he’d met earlier was close. Very close.

So close that, Jon noticed too late, he could hear the man. The voice didn’t ring inside his head -- and Jon was fairly sure he wasn’t inside the man’s own head, either. He was still blind and his mouth still didn’t move. And yet, the sound was as real and almost as clear as the screams of abject destruction coming from the creatures hellbent on flushing him out. 

“Archivist!” 

Jon stood suddenly. Blood rushed to his face, thundering in his ears. He felt dizzy. Terror gripped his chest and he knew that if he did nothing, this man would be torn to shreds or eaten alive -- or much worse -- and it would be entirely his fault.

Elias’ words from his dream surged in his mind like thunder and Jon wanted to scream. He had done this. People would die -- had died. It was him. His own doing. 

A tidal wave of adrenaline kept him going even when every ounce of energy left in his body was depleted. 

In the area immediately surrounding the chair, scattered between tall grass and old rotted branches, inhabited by colonies of ants, Jon found broken glass. It was hardly a weapon and he wielded it clumsily. Though it wasn’t until blood trickled from a cut on his palm, sticky between his fingers that Jon realised he should be feeling something more than guilt. 

The brush of a consciousness against his own came again, more urgently. Pressing him to accept its weight inside him. Opposite him, he smelled sickly sweet death in the monster’s breath. 

“Archivist!”

Jon had no choice. 

He closed his eyes, and for a split second he wasn’t Jon and he wasn’t in the middle of a forest invisible to him. He wasn’t blind. 

“You’re going to die,” Jon choked out, in a familiar British accent. “These things are here and they  _ will _ kill you. You can’t get to me.”

“I can hear them too, Archivist. Believe it or not, I’m not defenceless.”

Jon wasn’t sure he could believe the man. There were no weapons in his-their hands, nothing at all aside from brown gloves and a long stick by their feet. 

“You can’t fight them!”

They shook their head. “I don’t plan to. Can you get to me?” 

Jon cast their eyes up towards the treetops. From their position at the edge of a man-made clearing, he saw a wall of nearly uniform green, pines and other evergreens blocking the view. Any landmarks he would’ve felt on his way were obscured by the forest itself.

“No, I don’t think so. There’s no-- I… No.”

“Damn,” the man hissed. There was anger boiling in the pit of their stomach and Jon could just tell it wasn’t an emotion he was too used to dealing with. “You’re still close, I can…” He stopped, shook his head again. “Not now. You should go. I’ll be here.”

It was practically instant. They blinked and Jon was back in his body, as if he’d never left at all.

The pack of creatures were on him. One had dug its claws deep in Jon’s thigh and the pain slammed into him, forcing the breath from his lungs. Others lapped at the blood, their tongues hot and vile against his skin. The noxious smell of rotting meat wafted by-- thicker than ever before -- but it wasn’t until he felt teeth scrape his bare calf that Jon realised they might actually bite him. 

He didn’t need to know much about the creatures to be certain it would have killed or changed him beyond repair. 

_ Am I not changed beyond repair already? _ Jon’s chuckle sounded bitter even inside his own head. 

His fist closed around the shard of glass and he waved it blindly around him, panic guiding his movement. Snarls and some sort of hissing Jon had never heard before met his frantic attempts at keeping the creatures off him. 

It just wasn’t enough. 

And the more he bled from his wounds, the more intense his attackers became. Although he couldn’t tell for sure, Jon was pretty certain there were fights breaking out between them. He heard some of the creatures snap at the others, tumbling on the ground. He felt their antlers brush him, close enough to  _ almost _ gore him as they certainly did each other. 

He curled face down in the tightest ball he could manage, his nose buried in tufts of fur and bone chips and gore. His fingers numb and sticky. And he waited. His heart thundered in his chest, pulse drumming in his ears louder than the creatures’ howls. He wasn’t sure what kept him going, or why, when he was lifted up and hot pain blossomed in his shoulder, he didn’t just  _ give up. _

Elias’ knowing smile flashed before his eyes and Jon gagged himself against a thick leathery hide.

_ Spite was as good emotion as any. Was that what Elias had wanted? _

Something carried him through the woods, past the ravenous pack and back inside. Jon's senses faded in and out of focus as he toed the line between dream and feverish consciousness.

When he woke up, he remembered only parts of it, small pieces, glimpses and memories of a whole. He remembered the pain and the heat ebbing away and a weight settling on him, vast and cool. 

Things had... pulled at his skin, knitting it back together. Jon’s body was numb. He had smelled roasting meat and felt the knowledge of a grimace that never reached his lips. He’d felt sick, and then the chill had washed that away too.

Starker, the kind of vision that had nothing to do with his  _ own _ eyes but had been pushed into his mind nonetheless; the kind of memory he wouldn’t forget: Carla's sardonic grin. Her face was far too close his. He didn’t feel her palm cup his chin, but he  _ knew _ it was there.

“That’s the kind of enthusiasm I’d been looking for, Archivist! I'd almost thought you'd stopped surprising me. But what you did back there? I'm very excited for our next hunt,” she said.

Under them, the floor moved. The soothing rolling motion took him back to all the times he’d nearly missed the bus home from school.    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got a hint of Gerard in here! :D Don't worry he'll become a LOT more prominent very soon!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon stretches his powers again, and makes a new friend... somehow.

Jon's new cell, if it could really be called that, was a cement rectangle, walled on all four sides, barely wide enough for him to curl up in. It had no windows, but the barred door faced the woods and sometimes, when he wriggled his hand between the gaps and the breeze tickled the tips of his fingers just _right_ , Jon could taste freedom on his tongue.

The burst of hope that followed was usually pretty short lived.

Carla didn’t abandon him entirely -- that would’ve been more than Jon could hope for -- but her presence became spottier as time passed. And eventually, he was locked away in the dark, utterly alone, for much longer than he spent being chased or tortured; for so long that Jon wondered if the Hunt had _forgotten_ him and if he would wither away here, in the middle of nowhere.

Sometimes, Jon imagined being the hunter who would find his skeleton. Being the bird who landed on his cell’s bars and tweeted, unaware of his agony. Being the wind itself, carrying his mind away from his body, to settle -- comfortably nestled within another consciousness.

It wasn’t the silence that got to him.

Outside was seldom _quiet_. Every now and then, animals would shuffle by, their movement along the forest floor clear as day. Jon tracked the sound as long as he could, but ultimately, it retreated and he was alone again. More than once, he heard some sort of larger event -- whatever it was -- people’s voices, shouts and gunshots far off in the distance.

The only restful dreams he had left were utterly silent. Dreams of the Institute before becoming the Archivist. In these dreams, Jon sat in the archives and stared up at a low hanging sky, devoid of clouds. He watched the books move on the shelves, organised as if by an invisible hand to rules unknown to him. These dreams he still enjoyed .

But even those dreams eventually lost their meaning. As did everything else, fading away to a blank absence. Of emotion and… life.

Sometimes, instead of facing this gaping hole, Jon ran.

His muscles weakened with disuse. He was barely able to crawl the tiny length of his cell to reach the water-trough, or to stare out into the nothingness. But when he closed his eyes and his thoughts stilled in his head, he could choose to escape his prison. And yes, he ran. He wasn’t _himself_ , then. A couple times, Jon _knew_ he was seeing himself through the too-many-eyed lenses of a small insect, skittering on the walls to construct its web.

And what a pathetic sight that was: too thin, clothes patchy and molded over. Jon barely recognized himself in these mottled grey rags.

One morning, he was a fox, fur bristly and patchy with mange. It was tired and hungry, limping across a clearing in the woods when he saw _someone._ The fox’s first instinct was to tuck his tail and flee the stranger, and Jon had no control over it, nor over the direction in which its panicked escape took him. He barely had the time to glimpse at the man before they were gone, hiding crouched in the bushes.

In the end, it was the rich aroma of protein and fat that drew the fox back. Conflicting drives battled within its rudimentary mind and when it chose to approach the man, it was with the wariness of a wild animal guided by a starving one. Jon felt it rise inside him too, the need to eat overthrowing every other feeling until it was all there was left.

Food fell from the man’s gloved hands and the fox dashed towards it, desperate for its meal. Within seconds, the meat was gone and relief and joy flooded the fox. Somewhere else the light didn’t penetrate, Jon sighed, content.

The fox watched the man as more and more food was thrown at it. And slowly, it relaxed. As it ate, Jon finally had the time to cast his attention to the man. His awareness of their surroundings stretched and he Saw this was the same person who’d tried to rescue him. Now that he knew how to recognise it, Jon realised his very _presence_ was a familiar, comfortable weight in the back of his head.

Jon wasn’t sure the man felt the same. There was no push or pull from his mind, trying to draw him in. Not until he spoke, anyway.

“It’s my fault, I know that,” he said. “If I had planned it more carefully, none of this would’ve happened and you would be free already. Do you understand that, Archivist?”

The fox looked up, ears pricking.

The man’s pale skin contrasted with hair so dark it lost its shape around the flaps of his jacket. His mouth was a thin line, downturned with -- guilt or anger? Jon wasn’t sure. Recognition flickered through him, but it was vague and difficult to focus on through the fox’s eyes.

“They took you somewhere else, and I’m back to the drawing board.” He pointed to a spot behind him. The fox turned its head and Jon saw a tent. “Even I can’t stay here too long without going back for supplies, and by the time I return, where else will they have taken you?”

“I don’t want to say it’s hopeless, but… “He shook his head and hair flew in every direction. “I’m not going to give up. I’m not sure why, myself. Call it a quirk of mine. Either way, it won’t matter if I’m unable to locate you anytime soon. Animals are difficult to reach and if it’s come to that already… well… you can’t be doing well.”

“Do you want to… talk?” he added, a moment later. “I’m not sure if it’ll help, or if you can tell me anything I don’t already know, but I’m willing to try.”

Jon had no way of replying. If there was something he could’ve done to reach the man from within the fox’s mind, he didn’t know how. _He didn’t know very much at all, did he?_ Any sort of fine control over his powers escaped him and that made for a strange line: between being able to cast his consciousness out and complete helplessness.

He didn’t notice his conflict had leached into the fox until it yipped and nearly sunk its teeth in the man’s trousers leg.

Both jumped back and Jon barely had the time for one last glimpse before the fox took off, scared beyond repair by the sudden motion.

“I didn’t-- oh, Archivist!”

The fox ran and ran.

It dashed through the low hanging understory, aimless and so terrified it blocked everything else from Jon’s mind. At least until its nose twitched and it sniffed out an old empty rabbit den no others had claimed yet. Within minutes, it had found a secure location in which to sleep, and Jon felt the tension leave them.

Jon clung to the presence in the back of his head until it dissipated, nursing an emptiness that tore at his heart while the fox slumbered. He was unwilling to leave, but it wasn’t until he was lulled by the fox’s utterly _simple, easy dreams, that he knew why._

He followed -- _hid_ within the fox for a long time without ever meeting the man again -- or anyone else. Ripples of his presence echoed sometimes through the forest, invisible threads Jon didn’t know how to reach for, or follow.

For a while, his time was spent as far away as possible from himself; away from the meatbag locked away in that cell. He only returned when the fear that he’d forget what made him _human_ was pushed towards him, like a chess piece.

He knew it wasn’t a dream when he closed his eyes, and in a vision that wasn’t a vision, he saw Elias. It wasn’t real, of course not, though he hadn’t imagined it, either. This Elias was nothing like the man in Jon’s memories, formless with too many eyes, because it _wasn’t_ Elias. It was, he knew, a sliver of information being thrust over the ocean, from some odd thousand miles away.

“You are so very close, Jon,” Elias said as he sat in Jon’s cell. Some of his eyes reflected the moonlight. “Only a little longer now and you’ll be ready.” There was fondness in his tone. Jon wanted to pull away.

 _I’m not doing this for you, I’m not doing it for anyone_ , Jon thought as loud as he could manage. _But especially not for you._ So that was new; maybe they hadn’t broken that base anger out of him yet.

Even if the thought of voicing the words out loud left him feeling queasy.

Elias’ face twisted, shifting in place instead of moving. It rippled and he was smiling. Jon imagined a mouth with eyes where none should exist. “That’s the kind of thing I’m looking for, Archivist. Very good; very good indeed.”

The thoughts didn’t form clearly in Jon’s mind, but their intent was apparent all the same. Waves of outrage and a fire he hadn’t stoked burned in his chest. And self-pity, too. Hatred directed not only at Elias but at himself and what he had become.

“Now, we just need to hone that anger and you’ll be able to face the Stranger,” Elias replied. “Don’t forget what you’re here for, Jon.”

Elias’ presence was a stillwater pond. It rippled again and Jon saw… Martin, silver worms crawling over his skin, a sick smile on his lips. He saw Tim in shiny plastic pieces, his body rotting in a pile of limbs. He saw Melanie, her flesh waxy and melted, screams so loud they burrowed into his brain.

Jon had nothing left in his stomach and he choked and retched until tears burned new lines down his face.

 

\---

 

Jon’s new cellmate arrived what felt like a few days later, though in the absence of light, he really couldn’t tell for sure.

Spiders and a single bird aside, Jon hadn’t met any others in his isolation, aside from the creatures whose minds he’d brush in the forest. And even that he’d stopped doing, after Elias’ last visit. Food was sometimes shoved between the bars. Jon couldn’t remember his water being replenished ever since he’d been locked away. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been hungry, or attended to any of his other physical needs.

So when the heavy metal door creaked open, it startled Jon from deep in his own thoughts. When someone -- not Carla, he would’ve recognised her footsteps immediately -- followed, dragging a man behind, he flattened himself to one of the walls, cowering away from the commotion.

“Fucking hell, just stay down, asshole,” a voice said. “Fucking nasty.”

There was a bone crunching _snap_ and a fierce roar and Jon flinched away from both. He wasn’t sure how close they were, only that his ankle brushed an overly hairy body part. The suddenness of it all was more than he could take. He drew his knees against his chest as best as he could manage and curled, head bowed in a feeble attempt at tuning out the strangers.

“Jesus, never going to get you out at this rate. Gotta tell her this one is angry. Heh, that’s probably what she wants, ‘nother dog to go right at it, unlike the last one.”

“Yeah, that one was a wimp, did you see it? Tucked away? No wonder she’d go and make more so soon. Kinda obvious but hey, it’s not my head on the line.”

This second voice was thicker, almost breathless with… Jon didn’t know, anticipation for what was coming, perhaps? “It will be if you keep talking like that. And you know, I like you and all, Matt, but seriously, just get that thing locked up in there and let’s be over with. Missing the hunt already.”

“Hey! Don’t rush me. You remember what happened to the newbie that night? Not that this one seems quite as fierce, but you never know with these things.”

Jon couldn’t shut them out.

He heard a hard smack. There was some sort of struggle and a metallic smell filled the cell, but it was obvious who’d won when a pitiful whimper rung out. He couldn’t tell if he felt for the semi-conscious moaning in pain, or not -- if it was even a man at all.

“That’s it, let me just get you all tied up and--” He heard snaps again, this time metal against metal. “That’s it. Now, I guess we’ll see when she decides to feed you. Uh, do you think these chains gonna hold?” he asked.

“Dunno? I mean, does it matter if he eats the other one? I thought that was the point of bringing him out here. An easy meal and all of that?”

“...You’re probably right, yeah. Just… he looks so weak. What if he makes him sick?”

“Matt, seriously, shut the fuck up and come on.” The man sighed. “This is why no one likes you.”

“Sam likes me.”

“Yeah, but you know there’s something wrong with Sam. He likes everyone and that ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. He came back kinda wrong, you know that.”

A huff followed the door being pulled shut. It was the kind of nightmarish sound that made Jon press his forehead down onto his knees. Oblivious to his distress, the men chattered away and as they walked. Their voices drifted into the background, mingling with the forest’s sounds. Jon was left behind with only heavy breathing and soft groans as company.

For a time, the man in his cell was quiet -- not silent; there was no silence within the Hunt _\--_ and Jon didn’t move. His muscles were frozen in place, if not with fear, then with the very real knowledge he might not make it much longer. He didn’t need to _reach out_ or Know to be aware of the… thing he’d been locked in with. And of the danger it posed.

When it opened its mouth to speak, the man-- _it --_ was hysterical: icy terror and confusion muddled in one excruciating cry. Jon felt its torment as if it were own. They were too close and its emotions were too potent for Jon to sort them from his own feelings. They washed over him like water, quenching a thirst he hadn’t known he possessed.

It was a bit like forcing pain onto himself so it all would stop _feeling real._

“Why…” its voice was high-pitched and the words were distorted. Its intent was clear. Jon _heard_ it inside of him. _Why won’t you help me? Why won’t you do anything? Why are you hurting me?_

_Why won’t it stop?_

Jon leaned back against the wall. He rested his head on its cold surface in a feeble attempt to stop the explosive headache. Too many thoughts and that feral presence brewed between his temples. His skin was tight and sweat dripped down the bridge of his nose. _It_ was relentless, like drowning, or being buried by an avalanche of _otherness_ so strong it drew the breath out of him.

Gasping, he reached up to wipe the tears from his eyes.

Under the pain, deep enough that it was barely a fragment of a memory, Jon _felt_ an itch. It wasn’t real; he couldn’t reach and scratch it the same way he wouldn’t have compelled _himself_ . But it was there and the Archivist wanted _out._

_It was its own power with its own savage hunger, Beholding all._

His lips were dry and swollen. “Who are you?” Jon couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken; the last time he’d really spoken. The words were a croak, too quiet for himself to hear them.

Jon shuddered. For a moment, he was sure that Carla would materialize out of a corner and smack him, punish him for speaking.

The thing -- human, not human, somewhere in between -- howled in pain as more and more words were forced through a throat _too_ changed to allow this kind of speech. "Who am I?" It laughed, if a laugh were the absence of amusement and not its focus.

“I… my name was… my name was Charley, I think. It’s hard to think but I’m sure that’s right.” It paused, then repeated. “It’s hard to think with that… thing…  you know? _Can you feel it?_ I know it’s there. You can feel it too, right?”

Jon had no choice. He didn’t _decide_ to reply. It was out of his control the same way watching his employees -- friends? -- die hadn’t been his choice. His body was not his own and when his tongue moved against his bottom lip, he wasn’t the one controlling it.

Not _exactly._

“No, I can’t,” the Archivist spoke. “Tell me.”

The man did. “I came up here, oh, I don’t know, six months ago? See, I-- I had family down there, back home, back in Texas. But I always liked hunting -- we did it with some of the others, just a handful of us, small stuff, coyotes and whatnot -- and after you get to the big stuff, there’s really not much challenge back there. Sure, you can get bear sometimes, if you’re careful, but nothing like those polar monsters you get up here.

“That’s… that’s why I came to Alberta. There was a website, you know, the internet? Oh fuck, everything’s a mess in my head.”

Jon -- the Archivist -- cocked his head to the side, a silent motion for it to continue. Jon might not be able to see him, but the Archivist had never needed his _eyes._

“I signed up for this… well, it wasn't a legal hunt. But does that matter anymore? If I tell you, how are you going to get me arrested? We’re both locked in here.” It laughed, in that same unsettling way, devoid of amusement. _“_ I got me a fake ID to come up here. Those memories are a bit clearer. Tobias Mann, that’s my name -- I suppose -- though not my _real_ name, that’s Charley. I think.

“When I got here, I met up with this group, uh, I’ve forgotten their name now. They handed me a weapon and we drove up to Spirit River. There’s none of the really big targets there, but it was a good start and maybe we’d shoot some moose if we got lucky. That’s what I thought, that it was even better than I was hoping for, besides this was a long expedition sort of thing… I-- I guess I didn’t wanna turn back even when things turned out a bit… odd.”

With each sentence, the divide between Jon and the Archivist’s persona lessened. As did his headache.

“These cabins were tiny, for one thing but it’s not like I was gonna complain about sharing. But then, the food they’d got us... It was odd. I don’t really know how to put it. I swear I saw someone gnaw on a fingerbone. That’s… not right. That can’t be right… but I was hungry.

“So I-- we ate. I mean, I… I… _feed me! Why aren’t you feeding me?!”_ Its rage was sudden and obnoxiously loud. The chains holding its limbs creaked, and a heat that reeked of _meat_ brushed Jon’s face.

Through it all, the Archivist was utterly calm, a solid weight wearing Jon’s skin; _becoming_ him. Or maybe, Jon was becoming the Archivist. “I can’t help you unless you help me,” he said. “Please, continue.”

“I don’t know; I’m too hungry, it’s hard to think.”

“Try.”

“Okay, okay. We ate and it was amazing. It was… I mean, looking back I know we were eating _human flesh_ , but it was the best thing I’ve ever had. It’s juicy and firm; it just melts in your mouth… I mean there’s a reason they call it long pig. I could just have some right now. You’re plenty close...”

Jon leaned away from the reach of clawed hands, leaving them to grasp away at empty space between them. In the cell there little space for an escape; there was no safety. The walls closed in on them and he opted to shuffle towards the door, arms hanging out.

The Archivist felt no fear. It felt nothing but the endless need to Know and to Record. The latter was a frustrating _need_ creeping under his skin and Jon’s fingers twitched as if urged to reach for an invisible pen.

“Finish your statement,” it said, voice hard and foreign, especially to Jon. It terrified… and elated him and he didn’t want to think about what that meant. “I won’t ask again.”

Part of the Archivist searched the forest’s perimeter for a very familiar presence. It was warmer, more human than its counterparts. In Jon’s mind’s eye, he saw it as a different colour altogether, somewhere between a dying light and a warm green. Suddenly, Jon knew who this man was. And he knew why the Archivist wanted him. _It needed someone to record._

“Your service was inadequate,” the Archivist said. “Here’s your chance to redeem yourself.” Jon saw himself, saw the monster before him, through the Archivist’s eyes inside the man’s head, and he _understood._

“No, that’s not how this works, Archivist. I won’t be used like that,” Jon heard Gerard Keay say. “Not again.”

The Archivist was forced away, taking Jon with it.

It all happened in a flash, information rather than time, passing through him. He barely had time to consider the revelation -- why was Gerard Keay looking after him? -- or the fact he was back in his body before words rung out.

“...we ate.” Charley was breathless now. Its tongue sloshed around in its mouth and when it spoke, it spat drool in Jon’s direction. “And we hunted. Nothing big. Like I said, there’s… moose, sometimes, but we didn’t see any. We saw elk, nothing I hadn’t hunted before, but it was nice to get warmed up. We were focused on finding more -- not just elk, some grizzlies too -- that’s why I didn’t notice there were less of us until there was only a handful left. It’s not like they popped out of existence or anything.”

Its saliva was sticky and _hot_. It reeked of blood and clung to Jon’s clothes as he tried, rather uselessly, to move farther away from Charley.

“I remember being told they had just decided to leave. I mean, I _know_ that’s not true. I just didn’t realise what was happening till that woman got there. You know her?” It chuckled and shivers shot up Jon’s spine. “If you’re here, you must know. She never gave me her name, but the others just called her Carla, so I figured that must be it.

“Anyway, the first time I saw her, she was hauling this mighty big bull elk over her shoulder. It was damn impressive. That night when we ate, I figured that they’d gotten the bull dressed and cut and that was it. _It wasn’t_. The next day, I was chatting with this guy, Mike I think his name was. I distracted him from his shot and he missed bagging a big one -- another bull, I mean.”

Charley paused again and in his chest, fluttering wildly, Jon felt the Archivist’s impatience grow. It said nothing, but Jon’s muscles twitched and tensed, hands clenching hard enough his knuckles popped.

“I didn’t think anything of it. It happens to the best of us and Mike was new to the whole thing; he just this weedy guy who kept laughing at nothing. But when I woke up he was gone, and I remember Mike saying he’d wanted to try for some birds the next day, so when Carla told me he’d decided to leave… yeah, I don’t know, I didn't buy it. I didn’t hear anything. It was like, he’d just taken his stuff… and left. We’re in the middle of the forest and none of our vehicles were missing, so that was definitely strange.

“Still, he wasn’t in the same cabin as me and for all I know, he’d actually left, so. But I definitely kept an eye out for anything strange after that.”

Another pause. The Archivist inhaled sharply, digging nails into Jon’s palms.

“You don’t gotta tell me, I’m getting there. I feel it too, you know? That thing lurking under your skin, like mine but… _different._ I can smell it and it smells pretty damn tasty. Could just--” It shook its head. When Charley continued, his tone was clipped. “The day Mike disappeared, I asked Carla about it. I’d never really spoken to her and I was confused when she said that he was ‘with me’, like what’s that supposed to mean? So I asked some others and got these looks, condescending, I think.

“That night, I heard them. The… things. I don’t know how I never noticed them before, they were _loud_. They walked right up to our camp and started rifling through the stuff left outside, eating from the trash. I thought they were some sort of beasts I just didn’t know about. They looked like deer or elk but more upright and I couldn’t really see their heads through the cabin window in the dark. At least not until one of them saw me and got… close. I think I screamed then. Not at the thing’s face… well, skull... but I’ve seen enough rotting carcasses in my time, no-- it was… that thing had one ear and around all that caked fur and blood, it had one of those bright yellow hunting cards.

“It left after a minute or so and I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I was too busy thinking what the fuck I’d gotten myself into. We’ve all heard the old stories of people eating people and turning into monsters, but that’s just what they were, stories. They weren’t meant to be real. I confronted Carla about it and she laughed, can you believe it? She laughed in my face and shrugged.

“That’s when I knew for sure. I tried not eating. No one stopped me, but after a day without that… meat… I was going crazy, that was all I could think about. Like-- like _now._ The others knew that if they stepped down or tried to run they’d be hunted and eaten too, but none of us tried. We were too hungry, and then the blackouts started. Just a couple hours at first, then days. I don’t know how long ago that was. One morning I woke up with my head buried in an elk’s gut. It was a fresh kill… I… I don’t know.”

Charley sobbed, once, twice and whatever humanity was left in him seemed to drain from its cries. As the Archivist’s hold on its will subsided, it hiccuped, and in one frantic motion returned to desperately fighting the chains that kept it from Jon.

“I _will_ get to you! You’re not _more_ than me, Archivist!” it growled, its voice breaking into indecipherable noise without the Archivist’s suggestion keeping it together.

With the statement finished, the tension drained from Jon’s body. He slumped, boneless against the door. His head lolled back, resting over one of the bars, and he exhaled, blissed out and… full. Of power, of _words,_ of the delightful knowledge the Archivist fed on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon finally gets to hunt -- to be hunted again. He doesn't realise it's his last time.

The more Jon tested the Archivist’s limits, the more he realised there were none… well, none he could be bothered to find.

He was far from controlling it -- in fact, the opposite was closer to the truth; he was nothing but a fleshy vessel for this otherworldly power. But he wasn’t completely powerless, either.

Sometimes, he still ran. Sometimes, Jon left his body in the Archivist’s protection and hopped, free, through others minds. Farther and farther away, so far that most of his time was spent _in between_ everything, searching for new homes to inhabit.

He _wasn’t_ Elias. He didn’t Know or compel with his thoughts, and he didn’t influence the presences he touched. He was… a freeloader -- a parasite, maybe -- watching them through their own eyes, when the darkness and the overwhelming loneliness became too much to bear.

The Archivist was seldom loud. Instead, its presence was a comfortable weight against the back of Jon’s head, one that stretched to follow him wherever he went without ever intervening. Observing, he knew; cataloguing, and perhaps even recording, with Jon’s memory as a writing board.

It wasn’t very long after Charley’s statement when he finally sought Gerard Keay again.

With the Archivist came a sense of direction, the ability to pinpoint one single mind in a forest thick with them, and to brush it without forcing himself within. Jon wasn’t sure whether he was guided by the Archivist or not. Probably. The void between all living things was devoid of colour, of sight and sound and _being._ Only Jon’s _intent_ drove him forward, and he wasn’t alone, manoeuvred by a creature -- though that wasn’t the right word to describe it -- larger than he could imagine; larger than anything. Or everything.

He couldn’t think. If he could he would’ve been reminded of the Vast. But this wasn’t a single Power. It was not Knowledge or Space or Fire. It was Knowing he had _everything_ at his reach… Jon didn’t shiver, but he would have if he could. He could hardly _bear_ it and when Gerard’s mind opened to receive his, he slipped inside, grateful for the moment to breathe.

“I see you’ve found me again, Archivist,” Gerard said. He blinked his eyes and for a moment, all Jon saw was a dizzying blue sky. Then he sat up, stretching his legs before them. “Wait, I have that wrong, don’t I? You caught me at a bad moment, Jonathan.”

Gerard stood slowly. There was a stiffness in his joints and an undercurrent of pain that shot through the both of them. “You seem… better than the last we time spoke-- than the last time I saw you.”

Jon didn’t know what to say. He knew what he’d looked like, back then. “I, um… I had something to eat.”

“Did you eat… or did you feed it?” Gerard asked, running his fingers over the length of his opposite hand’s palm, the idle motion comforting. It was a tic, Jon realised.

Instead of replying, his-- _their_ eyes slipped shut and he chose to enjoy the heat of the sun, even if it lasted for barely any time at all,before Gerard dove inside his tent.

For a while, they were both silent and that was just _fine_ . He didn’t need any more reminders of what he’d chosen to accept; of what he’d become. Jon didn’t _want_ to speak and Gerard… well, he wasn’t sure. Gerard searched through his rucksacks for something, brushing aside a few pairs of underwear and socks, and what looked like a makeup bag.

When he found it, he sat back down on the end of his sleeping bag. Jon was the one to look down. There was a gun sitting between their legs, although he couldn’t tell exactly what kind it was.

Gerard sighed. “There were some complications after your last brush with our friends here. I assume most of them returned to the Huntress, but at least one was wounded and it was left behind after you were taken. I… well, it’s fine now. It’s dead.” He wasn’t wearing his jacket and when he looked down, Jon saw a bandage wrapped over his shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

They both jumped. Jon hadn’t expected himself to speak and Gerard hadn’t expected Jon to say anything, either. “Compared to what you’ve gone through, Jonathan, I’d say I’m perfectly fine. What matters is that I _will_ heal, and you… even the Archivist won’t keep you alive if you don’t get out of that place.”

Gerard continued, “At least not for much longer. But the Archivist’s presence also means I know where you are.” He rubbed his hands together. “Whether I’ll be able to get to you in time… I just don’t know, Jonathan. I didn’t know there would be so many of the turned. They’ve been converging for a while and I can keep myself hidden from a few, but so many? It’s taking its toll.”

A bird called, followed by a howl and a sound that could’ve been a falling tree. Gerard got the jacket and the gun and crawled back outside. The thing with nearly having the life wrung out of him was that Jon didn’t notice Gerard’s exhaustion until it hit him, when he swayed and pressed one hand to his-- their forehead.

“You should rest,” Jon mumbled, tasting the hypocrisy on his tongue. His voice was Gerard’s.

“If I could rest, I would. There’s no time for that at the moment. Later, I hope.”

Jon did too.

It was easy to communicate when he barely had to think the words to hear Gerard say them. “What if they get to you next time? It’s reckless, and if you get killed I will--”

Gerard’s mouth snapped shut, lips set in a hard line. He exhaled, forcing the air through his nose as he shook his head. _No_ and _Stop._ It wasn’t a thought and Jon wouldn’t have been able to discern it if it weren’t so stark and _cold_ versus Gerard’s usual warmth.

It was gone in an instant. “I’m sorry, Jonathan. That wasn’t something I wanted you to experience,” Gerard said. There was some sort of gun holster hooked to his belt and he removed it, looking it over a couple times. It wasn’t necessary, but it kept his hands busy. “It’s not your fault I was wounded, and it wouldn’t be your fault if I… I’ve nearly died once, it won’t happen again. If it did, it wouldn’t be you I’d blame.”

“But that’s not going to happen.”

“No. And the sooner I get to where you’re being kept, the sooner we will both be… I want to say _safe_ , but I think we both know that can’t ever be true.” He laughed. It was a short and sweet sound, and it made Jon’s heart speed up in Gerard’s chest.

Jon needed to do something, though he hadn’t the faintest clue what. When Gerard clipped on the holster again and squeezed his hands together, it felt like he was squeezing Jon’s hand.

“Be careful,” Jon said.

“Thanks to the Archivist, I have a pretty good idea of when your next Hunt will take place. If I can get there before… well, that’d be for the best. If not, I’m sure I’ll think of something when we have fifty of those things after you. It’s not going to be easy but...”

Jon understood. He didn’t think he had a choice and neither did Gerard. “Is… is there something I can do?” Jon asked, softer than Gerard had just been.

“Will you be able to stand when I get you? I’m not sure carrying you all the way back is an option, not unless…” Gerard grimaced and Jon felt him swallow the thick lump in his throat. “You’re not in good shape, Jonathan. But even then, I don’t want to make it worse for your body.”

 _The Archivist,_ Jon thought, like it made all the sense in the world. Like he could actually express, even with his own mind, how much it disgusted him.

 _“_ Yes, that’s not a solution though. It will work, temporarily, maybe for long enough to get you back to safety, but it will have consequences, and I can’t guess what they’ll be or how they’re going to affect you, Jonathan. I’d rather you keep it in the background, if you can.”

“You keep saying my name…” Jon hadn't meant to say it out loud.

“That's another question for another time, when I can explain what’s happened to you. When I can… make sense of it in a way you'll understand.” Gerard paused, cast his eyes down and Jon saw his boots were red. “I’m not trying to deceive you. I know… that’s hard to believe, given the circumstances. I probably would feel the same, if I were you.”

“Liar.”

The Archivist bled through them both at once, as if it had been summoned by the mention of its name. Gerard’s entire body stiffened violently, ram-rod straight, and a throbbing ache shot down his wounded arm, turning to a tingly numbness in his fingers. The gun, Jon belatedly noticed, slipped to the ground.

“I'm not lying to him! And you are not _supposed_ to be here! Jonathan, there is a reason I can’t tell you more right now and you don’t have to believe me but if you can’t keep it back, I won’t be able to help.”

Somewhere, stretched between his real body and his consciousness, the Archivist was a line and a hook, or a shadow, anchored to Jon’s presence. It was cranky… and endlessly _hungry._

“It… wants to know more. It _needs_ to hear you say it,” Jon explained.

“And I will, don’t you think it knows that?” Gerard’s chest tightened, though Jon couldn’t tell if that was emotion or pain flaring inside him. “I’ll tell you everything when your heart isn’t about to give out without _its power_ keeping you alive. When you’re safe in a fucking hospital, or at least, when you’re far away from the Hunt.” Gerard’s hands balled into fists, pressed onto his hips with too much force, and Jon bit back a shiver. “Until then, either you keep _back_ or your vessel will die and there is _nothing_ I will be able to do about that.”

“Don’t disappoint me again,” the Archivist said.

It was like a slap to their face. Jon felt blood boiling in his veins, and a scorching heat rose to Gerard’s cheeks. Surprise -- no, not the right word, Jon didn’t know for sure what it was -- and outrage rolled out of him in waves so thick that for a while, it was all he knew.

_Blinding him._

The sky was bright and empty above them, casting its light over the forest. Jon saw slivers of white disperse in the wind, felt the breeze on his face. And when Gerard’s eyes slid shut, Jon felt his own body, in that cell, decaying in the darkness.

If the Archivist had accepted the explanation, Jon didn’t know. It was still there, eternal, lurking in the depths of his brain, waiting for the opportunity to breach the surface and devour him. It _Knew_ . Of course it _Knew --_ it had the answers for all the questions Jon had never wanted to ask; things like what a creature’s transformation _looked like_ or what Gerard had suffered through. And when it tried to _tell_ him, Jon had forced it back, pushing and pushing until it was a whisper of a grin in the back of his skull.

After, they shared an uneasy sort of understanding, the scales too far tipped in the monster’s favor for Jon’s comfort. Still, in the dark, with only Charley’s cacophony of growls and snarls for company, it was easier to ignore the Archivist’s pressure.

Jon couldn’t find Gerard after that. He tried. He circled the woods from a bird’s eye view, picking out every squirrel’s trail, every creature's footprint, every pinprick of a presence on the forest floor. Gerard was gone without a trace and the confusion was a cold trickle down Jon’s neck. He tried not to think; to not believe the Archivist’s whispers, the ones that told him his weakness had driven Gerard away.

Or worse.

In his dreams, Gerard Keay was dead.

His body had been scattered over too many trees, limbs hanging askew from branches too fragile to support them. In those dreams, he followed a trail of intestines staining powdery snow until he found a ribcage nibbled clean by animals. In his nightmares, Jon walked towards where he knew Gerard’s head would be. Winter had come early and the landscape was frozen and still, and silent.

In some of his worst nightmares, Gerard was _not_ dead. His head had been severed from his body, his spine like a wicked centipede, wet and _pulsing._ His eyes were blank.

And he spoke. “How could you do this to me? I was trying to help you! How could you leave me behind?”

His hands moved automatically; Jon had no control over them. He plucked the head from the icy ground and pressed their foreheads together. Gore sloshed over his fingers and he stifled Gerard’s cries against his skin. His tears were warm as they ran down his chin.

From those dreams, Jon usually woke up whimpering breathlessly. He found himself on his side, jaw touching cold cement. Tears and sweat pooled in a little puddle, soaking through his clothes. In the constant gloom, he revisited his terror, this time with waking clarity.

Around him echoed Charley’s laughter.

 

\---

 

The next time someone came to check on either of them, Jon was far from ready.

It was the middle of the night and he was fading in and out of consciousness, avoiding sleep through the eyes of a small furred mammal whose name he’d forgotten. A sliver of the waning moon hung high up above the forest, tinting the world with diffuse silvery light. The creature Jon inhabited squeaked as it hopped through the undergrowth -- searching for late autumn bugs to hunt -- and Jon felt its driving hunger. It reminded him of his own, though much simpler and smaller.

He was comforted by it until the Archivist’s call jolted him back into his own body and he opened his eyes to -- well, nothing.

Disoriented, Jon tried to sit up, his palms flat against the wall. The absence of sound was obvious, though not entirely distressing -- for once, it was _nice_ not to hear any of Charley’s grunts, or snores; or those taunting chuckles that burst through the cell every now and then.

Still, the Archivist’s irritation washed through him and Jon was made painfully aware this wasn’t the time to feel _good_.

 _Listen, Know,_ it told him. _You’re not alone._

Jon didn’t have to wait very long, or focus too hard. There was someone, or something in the cell with them. It prickled in the back of his mind, and -- more, he couldn’t hear Charley’s breaths; couldn’t sense its heartbeat; its pulse; its familiar presence was gone.

He straightened against the wall, glancing uselessly around the cell, like it would help him _see._ His _eyes_ didn’t, but on the other hand, the Archivist _showed_ him exactly what he’d wanted to know.

Whatever veiled the silent presence, it parted at the Archivist’s touch and following its reveal, Jon… Jon wasn’t himself. He _saw_ red. He was an eagle diving through a herd of elk in a flurry of claws and feather. He was a pack of dogs-- no, monsters -- ripping the faces from a pair of campers, sinking their teeth in their flesh and tugging until it came off the bone in easy strips. He was bigger, more vicious, hungrier than he’d ever been. He _was_ the Hunt, the forest, the silent predator. And then he wasn’t.

“Oh, Archivist!” Carla giggled, clearly delighted. “I see you’ve learned some new tricks since we’ve last met.”

The Archivist reared under Jon’s skin, wrestling for control. Jon gasped with the fearful instinct to duck down and curl, or turn away from Carla and press himself to the wall. It was only the Archivist’s strength of will that kept him from buckling down.

Against his own thoughts, slipping from his grasp as if in one of his terrible dreams, Jon’s mouth moved and... he bit his own tongue in the process. “You are the one I--”

Suddenly, Jon felt a pressure on his windpipe just as something _hard_ whipped him across the head. “No, I don’t think so. Have you forgotten _all_ your training?” Her nails sunk into his skin, holding him by his throat.

Jon was somehow lifted and it was worse than having been suspended by his wrists. He tried to fight it, thumping one fist uselessly on Carla’s arm. It reminded him of another time -- another continent, back home, before he’d made a habit of being kidnapped. It reminded him of another woman, a different avatar.

Carla seemed to read his thoughts, although Jon -- the Archivist -- told him she couldn’t. “Look at you and all that new fire in your belly. It will be a delight to snuff it out again.”

When the Archivist composed itself, it drove words between Jon’s lips, forcing his tongue to move through the blood and the absence of air. And Carla dropped him. It was awkward and Jon fell only a foot or so, but his knees hit cement and he screamed when his foot twisted _wrong._

“You forget yourself, Archivist,” she said. “And this broken body you live in. Any more words and I will be forced to show you the kindness I’ve shown poor Charley here. Oh, I forget, you couldn’t _see_ it, could you?”

Although the Archivist kept him from screaming again, Jon couldn’t stop the tiny sobs that insisted on wracking his chest. His eyes stung and he was vaguely aware of Carla moving above him, only that her fingers ran through his hair and _yanked_

“Charley,” Carla said, disappointment lacing her words, “Was very, _very_ bad. And now that he’s dead, he’ll be able to finally do something useful with himself. Is that going to be the case with you, Archivist?”

She shoved him towards a solid, lukewarm mass. Sparse fur tickled Jon’s nose and he tried, through the tears and the pain, not to gag. The corpse stank of putrefaction already and that didn’t disgust Jon nearly as much as the fact he recognised its stench.

“Stand up.”

Jon considered, for a moment, not obeying, and the thought was pushed from his mind by the Archivist. _Absolutely not._

It was agony to try to balance with a broken ankle and, after another pathetic cry, Jon clasped one hand over his mouth so that, when he wobbled forward, guided by Carla’s fingers on his shoulder, his weeping was muffled. It was hardly ideal and he scraped his elbow on the cell walls a couple of times before steadying himself.

Jon stepped on something slippery. It squelched under his heel and he tried to ignore the Archivist’s curiosity. He didn’t need to know which of Charley’s body parts that had been.

“Come on, they are waiting. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a night hunt,” she said. “And you are such luscious prey, Archivist.”

Outside was just as dark and significantly colder than the cell had been. Carla took him at least a couple of feet from the door, forcing him to keep a pace his ankle could barely support, before letting go and almost sending Jon flying forward. Around him, Jon heard shuffles and low growls and those horrendous laughs that came from every direction at once. One was… stranger -- high pitched and squeaky -- than the others.

“It seems Sam found you a present, isn't he charming?” Carla said.

The creature padded closer. Jon's breath caught in his bruised throat and he tried not to flinch from it - - from Sam, he realised. It dropped something by his feet, though it wasn’t until Carla’s whip slapped the back of his knees and he fell forward, sprawled on the ground, that Jon felt the stick jutting painfully against his ribs.

“Don’t be so ungrateful, Archivist. Go on,” she sneered. “Pick it up.”

 _You have no choice. Do it or die suffering_ , he told himself, or perhaps, the Archivist told him.

Jon had no idea how he was able to force himself back up; probably the Archivist’s self-preservation instinct kicking in. From his ankle shot searing pain, the kind that would’ve blinded him… if that meant anything now. His heartbeat drummed in his ears, and Jon was glad he hadn’t eaten anything in… far too long when his stomach twisted and he heaved, little drops of blood and drool running down from his mouth.

All around him, that feral, manic cackling rose louder.

In the end, it was Sam’s stick that kept him from collapsing. Jon tried waving it around him, in a moment of utter madness, like a piece of wood would keep the monsters away. It made the creatures laugh harder, so much closer than they’d been a minute earlier.

“It’s a walking stick,” Carla explained. Jon gripped it with one hand, the other keeping him -- mostly -- silent. “I have to say, I’m impressed. Of course we’d heard _all_ about you, Archivist. But the way you keep clinging to that… broken thing. It’s impressive, really!”

Jon gritted his teeth, burying the Archivist’s furious snarl between his fingers. Its _indignation_ was deafening. It knew better than to speak, and Jon didn’t blame it. He didn’t know if he would’ve been able to stand again, either.

Carla walked around him. Her footsteps echoed more distinctly than the creatures’, sharper somehow. “That’s more like it. You’ll need that to survive tonight. And if you do, I suppose there are things at stake here besides my little fun, aren’t there? If only the Beholding didn’t need you. But, well, another week or two isn’t going to make much of a difference.”

The Archivist was an _itch_ , endless things skittering under his skin, in his bones and everything in between, vibrating with the need to _Know,_ to _take Carla’s statement_ and _grow_. And, when faced with Carla’s taunt, Jon didn’t know if he would be able to stop it, or if it would even stop itself before his dying breath.

Carla’s whip -- that’s what he assumed it was, hard and unyielding -- rested over his shoulder and Jon took it as the signal for the hunt to start. He didn’t wait, dashing forward, wobbling brokenly with the stick as his only defence, as his only comfort.

Behind him, Carla’s voice seemed to follow. “Be careful, Archivist. There’s a bit of a river in this part of the forest. It hasn’t frozen through yet and it would be such a _shame_ if you fell in.”

 

\---

 

Looking back, Jon knew he should’ve paid more attention to her warning, even if it was clear she’d only meant to torment him with it.

Running was impossible and he was caught between the need to _escape_ and the battered body he was cooped within. His ankle dragged uselessly behind him. His foot had swollen and was too numb to move when he wanted it to, and every time he forced his legs to go _faster_ , fresh tears welled in his eyes. Things -- probably leaves and bits of bark -- clung to his trousers, digging through the fabric to poke him.

Still, the agonizing pain was the least of his worries. If exposure didn’t end him, the creature would. And if they didn’t catch him, he was doomed to suffer for who knew how long until Carla found him. It _wasn’t_ a game -- not one designed for him to play, anyway -- and he couldn’t _win._

Jon didn’t know how long he could go for.

The Archivist guided him, though not very well. Its presence scared the animals away and with them, their sense of direction. Jon felt them, flickers of awareness in the distance, running from its touch as if from a predator. He hadn’t considered what it must be like to them, like an elephant chasing a mouse; like a looming shadow.

Without any functioning eyes through which to see the world, they stumbled. More than once, Jon collided with a tree or tripped on a rock, and it was only Sam’s stick that kept him half upright, frantically gasping for breath. A couple times, he was about to stop and sit down and just wait for the inevitable, only for the Archivist to slam back into him, forcing his limbs and his muscles to move even against his will, like a puppet trapped within himself.

The river was closer than either of them had expected.

Even half frozen by the night’s chill, the river wasn’t devoid of life -- little bursts peppered the back of his mind, too small to focus on. But it was quiet and it was still, and Jon didn’t notice he’d just stumbled down one of its banks until he knelt in icy mud. His stick was trapped, and after an attempt to free himself, so was Jon. The more he fought it, the thicker it caked onto his clothes and the further he dragged himself into the shallow waters.

He had no choice in the matter, nor the strength left to struggle. Even with the Archivist pushing for him to continue, Jon couldn’t escape.

The water was cold, but not as cold as Jon would’ve expected -- that was what scared him the most. He didn’t need the Archivist to tell him what that meant or help him visualize exactly how his body’s dropping temperature would affect him.

His gasps slowed to quiet, shallow breathing. His head was fuzzy, his tongue a solid block in his mouth. His shirt was wet and Jon wrestled with it for a little while before the Archivist stopped him. _Paradoxical undressing, you’re making it worse_ and _stop it_ , all rung in his head at once. Jon did, his hands falling away to splash uselessly by his sides, and he had no idea why.

There was barely any current, it might’ve not been a river at all. A lake? Lagoon? Whatever it was, he was waist deep in it, steering in lazy circles that led nowhere at all.

The Archivist offered him brief moments of clarity, as seen through creatures too small and insignificant to mind its presence inside them. That was Jon’s only respite: flashes of sight from eyes to which all colour was absent; that saw the world in perfectly symmetrical segments, with strange lines and trails Jon’s brain couldn’t interpret.

Somehow, he made it back to the shore, although by then, Jon was too cold-warm too notice. He must’ve collapsed, because the ground was pressed to him -- or he was pressed to the ground, whichever -- and there was a weight on his spine.

He moved -- no, he _was_ moved. Jon didn’t even consider a monster might be about to slaughter him and he felt himself smile.

“Jonathan.” A voice. “Don’t go to sleep,” it told him, then it seemed to address someone else. It was harsher, clipped. “Don’t let him go to sleep or he will die, you understand?”

Jon didn’t understand it, and he didn’t like the monster inside him, the one that kept him from dozing peacefully.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing Jon notices are the arms wrapped around him...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for taking a bit longer than predicted to get this chapter out! Mostly just re-reading and getting some help editing things. I hope everything else will continue to roll on Sundays/Wednesday.
> 
> On some assorted good news. I finished the fic! Also, GERARD is finally here. :D

The first thing Jon noticed were the arms. They were loosely wrapped around him from behind, hands clasped over his chest. The second was a dull ache that ran from the tips of his toes to his throat, throbbing in time with his pulse. The third was... a steady breath washing over the back of his neck, rolling down his shoulder blades and making his skin tingle in a way that was definitely pleasant.

And finally, Jon took notice of how cold it was. He was drenched in sweat, shivering against his captor, held fast by nothing but his own exhaustion and his own inability to struggle. Restrained by how much more comfortable he was now than he’d been in a very long time. Instead of trying to move, he relaxed, listening to the sound of rustling foliage and running water somewhere nearby.

_ Still in the forest, then, _ he thought through the haze in his head.

The Archivist was silent, a glimpse of a willpower buried so deep in the depths of his mind that Jon didn’t think he could reach it if he wanted. Not unless it decided to reveal itself again.

Jon opened his eyes to a looming darkness, punctuated by slivers or tendrils of soft white. He didn’t know what they were and followed them for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness. Although his sleep was punctuated by dreams, they were simple and easy: the one where he floated, weightless and free, over the forest; the one where he was a grain of salt dissolving in the ocean, unthinking, unaware of the large and the small things that passed him by, becoming smaller and smaller until he vanished.

He didn’t know how long he slept for. Until his muscles cramped and the floor shifted under him. The motion caused aftershocks of pain to shoot down his legs, coiling sharply around his ankle. He felt barely alive _ ;  _ too tired to do anything but lay there -- wherever  _ there _ was -- with shards of his own memories for company.

And whoever had brought him here.

Jon must’ve groaned, because something that felt like a gloved hand came to rest on his shoulder, not quite pressing down. Leather-clad fingers stroked his skin and he made a noise that was somewhere between a moan and a surprised cry.

“You’re awake,” someone said. It was Gerard, Jon noted, or someone who sounded exactly like him. “You should try to sleep for a little longer, if you can manage it. There’ll be enough time to explain everything, after we’re out of here.”

Jon agreed -- he could sleep for the rest of his life and it still wouldn’t be enough -- though when he tried to express it, when he tried to nod, the breath hitched in his throat so hard it almost sent him into a coughing fit.

Gerard was right there, holding him down with a gentleness that honestly, Jon hadn’t thought possible. There was something between them -- some sort of quilt that weighed down on his chest. It was, Jon realised, tangled around his legs and it had been, Jon Knew, the cause of his sudden pain.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re safe here, Jonathan,” Gerard said in the same voice he might’ve used to calm a feral cat, low and soothing.  “You shouldn’t try to move yet. You’re not in a good condition and… I did what I could, but… You need more than me and it’s going to take some time until help gets to us, so hold on.”

Jon wanted to protest, he wasn’t _scared_ , he didn’t need whatever Gerard was doing. He could barely deal with the thought of being _hurt_ ; the thought someone was actively helping made him sick. But when he tensed, Gerard backed off, just a little.

“ _ Please _ .”

Jon felt his presence next to him, silent and patiently waiting, their bodies touching awkwardly. And he found that with those hands massaging his shoulders, trying to hang on to consciousness was like fighting a battle he’d lost a very long time ago.

_ It wasn’t fair, but since when is the world fair? Monsters aren’t fair. _

He slept again, dreaming of those impossibly effortless things that meant nothing at all, like space or the sky. It was during one of them, during his time as a shooting star, zooming between galaxies and nebulas, that he was dragged away.

Beside him -- inside his head -- the Archivist stirred.

 

\---

 

_ He’s himself. His body doesn’t feel like his own, but that’s only because he’s nowhere at all. It’s not a void. Jon thinks that he’d notice if things were lacking. But no. Nothing has ever existed here, and after him, nothing ever will. He’s sure of it. _

_ And that’s… a funny tugging in his stomach; it’s a thought his brain tries to wrestle into submission and fails. It’s too big -- and too small -- to really get. _

_ What was there before there was anything to be there? _

_ I need to stop thinking about this, he thinks. Before I go mad. That’s when they appear around him. Although that’s not really true. They don’t appear. They weren’t and now they are. _

_ Elias sits at his desk. It’s still the same deep red as before. It bleeds into the dark carpet and Jon is reminded of a still lake beneath his feet. He doesn’t know why. He looks down at his reflection and sees someone behind him, hovering over his shoulder. _

_ “Welcome back, Jon. It’s good to see you’ve finally been able to make some progress,” Elias says. He’s wearing a black suit, as dark as the carpet. “You’re very close now. Almost ready to face the Stranger and stop his Dance.” _

_ “And none of that was thanks to you,” Jon replies. He doesn’t plead and he doesn’t cry. His eyes narrow and he glares at Elias. _

_ “By all means, Jon. All I’ve done was push you in the right direction. You did everything else yourself. Who do you think I am?” _

_ Jon has to glance away from the inhuman smile that stretches across Elias face. For a second, no, less than that -- for a fraction of a moment, he sees what Elias is. And he is terrifying. _

_ “You? All I know is that you sold me like fucking cattle to the slaughter.” _

_ The shadows laugh at him. Jon body stiffens when the entity behind him flickers away and reappears beside Elias. Jon can’t focus on it, it’s… nothing he can see. Not really. It doesn’t exist as a physical thing and he can’t imagine it. It’s… a wraith. The Archivist is a fragment of a power with no shape, cloaked in the dark. _

_ The shadow shifts and opens and reveals a stretch of void with far too many eyes. Every single one of them is wide open, staring into Jon. _

_ “I could erase him,” the Archivist says. “He’s split off. One thought and he’d be gone.” _

_ Elias seems to consider it. The chessboard is still on his desk, but the king has been cleaved in half. _

_ “Maybe that would be the safer option. Though I would loathe to lose that touch of humanity, as small as it is. It would make your job so much harder,” Elias says. “No, leave him for now.” _

_ He doesn’t think the Archivist’s eyes should be able to see inside of him, but they do. They see every thought, every memory. They wring him inside-out with their gaze until Jon thinks even his body isn’t his own. _

_ He is something, though. _

_ “And if he can’t make us whole?” _

_ Jon doesn’t like how they talk like he’s not there. He takes the King from his square and he holds the broken piece, rolling it between his fingers. “I’m still here,” he says. _

_ Elias nods, though he doesn’t look perturbed by Jon’s actions. “And I am very proud of you still.” He lifts one hand and motions for him to be silent. _

_ And Jon can’t speak. He’s never been able to. He doesn’t remember how to do it. He’s desperate, struggling for breath in the void that is Elias’ office. He tries to claw at his own throat, but he’s forgotten how to move. How to stand. _

_ The eyes follow him as he collapses in a boneless pile. The King is back on the board. _

_ “If he can’t make you whole, you’re free to do with him as you will. It will be a shame, of course, but that’s always a risk when we take a new one,” Elias says. _

_ “This one is better than his predecessor, more malleable.” _

_ “Yes… yes he is,” Elias agrees. _

_ Around him, Jon’s world falls away and reforms itself. The Archivist slips into him, like wearing a cloak he’s forgotten he’s put on. _

__

\---

 

Jon stirred slowly, his body trying to catch up with what his head already knew. He wasn't in a black-tinted room somewhere -- another dimension, for all he knew -- where the rules of physics bent for a chaotic will. He wasn't in Elias’ office and he wasn't the Archivist’s pawn.

That last one might be a lie, but Jon told himself it anyway.

Around him, he heard the steady hum of... a fan? And a crackle that cast him back to his old fireplace in the winter, or all the times he’d been dragged to celebrate Bonfire Night in the rain. Further away, he heard footsteps pounding on gravel or sand. And Gerard’s voice.

“I'm not going to risk his life for a chance to save a couple hours,” Gerard was saying. As far as Jon could tell, he was pacing back and forth, over and over. “I don't give a shit if it's going to take you longer to get to this place than the other, I'm not going to force him to walk.”

Jon strained to keep track of the conversation, his focus waning. Exhaustion settled on him, like a blanket or something equally physical, equally  _ real. _ It was easier to realise its effects on his mind after his encounter with Elias. He felt drained.

“Of course I bloody well know what it'll cost me. You think I don't know that? He  _ will  _ die if we try to hike out of here. You want a list of injuries, seriously? Have you ever heard of exposure?” There was a long pause and Jon heard Gerard hiss. “No, fuck you too. I'll be waiting.”

Gerard stopped walking all of a sudden and it was obvious whoever he'd been talking to was gone. He heard a noise that could have been a muffled, frustrated yell. And then nothing _. _

Jon wasn’t sure if he’d dozed again, or if the silence was particularly short lived. The next thing he noticed was the sound of unzipping, metal on metal and rustling plastic.  _ That, _ Jon thought, was Gerard’s tent’s entrance flap. It was followed by a loud shuffling.

He followed the noise with his eyes. They didn’t help him come to terms with the fact that he was most likely wrapped in Gerard’s sleeping bag, and they didn’t help him  _ see _ . But Jon didn’t need them to  _ understand. _

Gerard seemed to notice and Jon heard him sigh. “I'm sorry if I woke you,” he said. “It wasn’t my intention.”

Jon tried to shake his head and all he managed was a distressed noise. He  _ knew  _ it  _ wasn’t  _ Gerard’s fault. At least, not nearly as much as it was the Archivist’s fault. Its presence lurking in the back of his mind, yearning for more. More words. More information.

Gerard exhaled. It felt odd to be aware of how closely he followed every sound; how he catalogued them to make sense of his surroundings.

“You need to sleep some more.”

A hand touched the top of his head and he almost shuddered. Last time anyone had done that, he’d almost died again. This time Jon didn’t even have the time for surprise before fingers weaved in his hair, stroking a soothing motion across his scalp, circles and lines and figures he couldn’t keep track of.

“Go back to sleep, Jonathan. You need your rest,” Gerard said, very quietly. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk after you recover.”

_ If _ you recover, Jon amended in silence.

The tips of Gerard’s fingers smoothed down some stray hair across Jon’s forehead, avoiding the burnt skin around his eyebrows, and it sent little warm tingles curling in his stomach. His muscles relaxed again, the tension easing out of him, and Jon heard himself mumble even though he hadn’t tried to speak.

“Tell me a story.”

Gerard’s hand didn’t stop moving. Jon stiffened, caught between the urge to flinch from predicted oncoming pain and submit to the wonderful way Gerard touched him, and to his body’s own need for more restful sleep.

After a moment, Gerard replied from somewhere above him. “Okay, Jonathan. But a story, not a  _ statement. _ ”

Jon didn’t think he’d whined until the sad noise rung in the tent, around them. Inside him, he felt the Archivist’s displeasure, and Knew it’d been the one to press the words out with his tongue. It grew hungrier by the hour, but it didn’t push Jon further. Not yet.

The story was some half-remembered children’s tale, something Jon had heard before but could barely recall the details of. He followed it with the kind of attention that meant he wasn’t really following it at all, only the words and the way Gerard spoke them: the way his voice rose and fell as he told of a particularly adventurous character; their rhythm; the cadence of syllables in that familiar accent.

Even without the hand petting his hair, Jon didn’t think he would’ve been able to resist Gerard’s story. Combined? He drifted from scene to scene, half-dreaming, half-caught by knights and dragons and princes, and whatever else Gerard came up with to fill his mind.

Jon didn’t even know if the story made any sense. He didn’t need it to.

 

\--

 

His next time waking up was more urgent and more painful than the previous. Before Jon realised what was happening, he’d been forced to sit up against a flimsy surface that stretched under his weight. His ankle complained at the sudden movement, blood rushing into his limbs and prickling under his skin. He groaned through the dryness in his throat, his tongue practically numb.

At least, that’s what he  _ tried  _ to do.

His lips parted and that was when a hand slid over his mouth, pressing tight enough he nearly bit it. Still groggy, Jon didn’t know whether to panic or not. He reached up, ready to wrestle his captor, and his palms curled over leather gloves. He followed them up to the forearm, his fingers touching weirdly textured flesh. He’d never --

_ Burns _ , he thought and it all clicked together. It was Gerard -- had to be -- and whatever was happening, it couldn’t be good. Gerard wouldn’t have tried to wake him otherwise.

“Be quiet, if you can,” Gerard whispered, and Jon felt his breath in his ear.

Their faces touched. Gerard rummaged through the tent in near absolute silence. Jon was close enough he still heard it, and he dearly hoped whatever they were hiding from didn’t. But though Gerard’s arms moved, his nose was buried in the space between Jon’s jaw and his neck. Keeping himself quiet, he figured.

Jon didn’t mind it. Especially not when it meant the difference between living through this and death at the hands of whatever was out there.

He had a good idea what it might be.

There were footsteps -- no, that wasn’t right -- soft footfalls on a hard ground. They didn’t sound like a wendigo. There was no hint of the kind of mindless viciousness he’d come to expect from the creatures. Instead, whatever it was snuffled around the tent, so loud that Jon’s heart jumped in his chest. His skin crawled and he realised he was clinging to Gerard’s arms.

“It doesn’t know I’m here,” Gerard mouthed so quietly that it wasn’t until the Archivist repeated the words inside his mind that Jon knew what he’d meant. “But it can smell you, and that’s going to be a problem.  _ Damnit.” _

Gerard pulled away inch by inch, until there was a gap between them. Jon didn’t think he’d been cold before, but he still shivered. Gerard had found the gun and aimed it at the looming silhouette -- Jon didn’t know this for sure, but the Archivist’s commentary told him as much.

Very briefly, Jon considered trying to reach out for Gerard’s mind. He remembered the way it had made him feel, comfortably  _ nestled inside  _ instead of defenseless in the dark.

He decided against it just as the creature gave a heart wrenching cry before it padded away back into the forest proper. The sounds of its presence died in the distance and next to him, he felt Gerard’s sigh of relief, though he didn’t hear it over the sound of his own beating heart.

They were silent for however long it took Gerard to seemingly decide it was  _ safe. _ It was a lie, of course. They wouldn’t be safe anywhere in world. They just happened to be a  _ lot _ less safe out here.

“I didn’t want to do this.” Gerard was still murmuring his words. “But we can’t stay here and I can’t afford to wait any longer for a rescue that’s not coming.”

There was an arm around his shoulders and Gerard tugged, pulling Jon up a little straighter, before reaching to wrap the other around his waist. Gerard held him there -- a little awkward inside the tent -- and somehow managed to drag them both outside with almost no noise. All while not causing Jon any undue pain, either.

Then he stopped and gagged.

The stench hit Jon out of nowhere. It was cloyingly sweet. It reminded him of a mushroom he’d once found on a school trip to the Queen’s Park, back home. He’d gotten as close as he could and watched as more and more insects gathered around it, attracted by the terrible smell.

That was almost two decades earlier and Jon still hadn’t forgotten the scent of fresh, sickly decay. Or the way it rolled over him, driven by the breeze. He tried to shake it off, to stand up and possibly retch, and it was Gerard’s hand on him that kept him from moving.

“Don’t try to stand up. I--” Gerard stumbled over himself, nearly tripping on Jon’s legs. “It seems whatever was outside decided to bring us… a present.”

Unaware that he’d even tried to reach out, he saw a glimpse of the world through Gerard’s eyes before he was shut out again. The sun had nearly set, and the shadows were orange and deep red. They bounced off metal tags and what had probably been a belt buckle worn by the eviscerated corpse a couple feet from them.

In the dying connection, Jon  _ felt _ Gerard’s frustration.

“Don’t do that again, Jonathan,” he said. “I know you can’t see, I-- I don’t know everything you’ve gone through but I can’t keep… doing that for you. Not right now. I’m sorry.”

Jon… stopped. He ignored the sight of the body, burnt into the front of his mind, and he stared in the direction of Gerard’s voice. They were still close enough that he’d only need to reach one arm forward to touch that leather jacket, but he didn’t. And neither did Gerard.

Scooting back, Jon tried to ignore the wounded feeling that blossomed within, jagged and  _ hurt,  _ all weird corners that _ made no sense _ . He licked a corner of his lips, willing his throat not to clench shut and the pressure in the corners of his eyes to subside. He couldn’t cry again, he wouldn’t.

Gerard noticed; of course, he could just  _ see  _ Jon move and didn’t have to resort to any other senses. “Hey, I’m sorry,” Gerard repeated, closing the distance between them. He pressed their foreheads together. “I wish I had more time to explain it to you. Right now, you’re going to have to trust me, Jonathan. And believe I’m… not angry. This… isn’t how I wanted things to go.”

There was an impatience in his movement not betrayed by his voice. They didn’t have time for Jon to feel delicate all of a sudden. Jon knew this himself and he hated that he -- that he was  _ emotionally  _ weak, as well as physically.

Gerard held him closer.

They stayed like that, with Jon’s chest trapped between Gerard’s arms, hugging him, for what was probably too long. Jon rested his face on Gerard’s shoulder and he allowed the emotions bleed out of him in tiny gasps. It wasn’t easy and he had no other choice.

“Are you going to be alright if I have to carry you?” Gerard finally asked, straightening with Jon in his arms. “If you can’t walk, I’ll have to leave some of this stuff behind. But it’s better than forcing you to walk like this.”

When Jon didn’t try to reply, he continued, “I understand if it’s hard to talk but you have to try. I can’t keep guessing what’s in your mind. And if you see something and can’t tell me…”

Gerard didn’t have to finish his sentence, Jon heard the  _ please _ loud and clear. Inside of him, he also felt the Archivist and its attention. It wanted to stretch his limbs a little.

There was a lump in the pit of his stomach. It rose, dark and bitter, and it tasted of bile on Jon’s tongue. Images of Carla before she’d burned his eyes out rose, unbidden, with it and Jon felt a streak of pain shoot up his spine. It was followed by a nauseating ache in his head.

“You don’t have to do it right now.” Gerard’s hands soothed circles across his back. Jon hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t naked. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep in that tent.

“I… want to.” Jon’s voice was very different from his memories. Croaky and hesitant, each word taking several seconds to form clearly. “...it’s not you.”

Gerard gave him as long as he needed and for some reason, that only annoyed Jon. They didn’t have any time to spare, especially if one of the creatures had caught his scent. But the irritation wasn’t logical and Gerard wasn’t the one to blame for what’d happened to him. Right?

“Put me down… I can walk.” Jon said, biting down on the inside of his cheeks to stop himself from whimpering when Gerard obeyed and his feet touched the ground.

If there was pity in Gerard’s eyes, Jon was glad he couldn’t see it. He was careful, maneuvering Jon until he was sat on a tree stump, and then pushing something that felt just like a walking stick to his palm. When Gerard moved away, though not before giving his shoulder one last reassuring squeeze, Jon sobbed, just once.

They packed, or rather, Gerard did, speaking of the things he was doing as he moved around the campsite. Jon found that he paid attention only for the sake of listening to his voice, and that he’d very nearly drifted off by the time Gerard stroked the top of his head.

“We’re only a couple hours from the road, and I can get someone to pick us up there,” he explained, though his hand didn’t move away, his fingers still running through Jon’s hair. “Or we’d be a couple of hours, if you were fit to walk. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but we’ll do it, Jonathan.”

If they didn’t, if the creatures caught up to them, Gerard would die and he’d be there to witness it in gruesome detail. Jon Knew this with the same certainty that the sky was blue, or that his body wouldn’t make the trip.

“Okay,” he replied, reaching up to catch Gerard’s wrist, holding him there for a little longer.

 


	7. Chapter 7

They didn’t stop for what felt like hours, walking through dusk and most of the night, though Jon knew the changing time only through Gerard’s running commentary. By the middle of it, he was raw. His entire body felt like an open wound and his mind lagged several miles behind them, hanging on to whatever small consciousness he could hop into to forget his own pain.

It was hardly ideal, and Gerard seemed to notice it every time. He’d reach for Jon’s hand, tangle their fingers together and  _ demand _ the Archivist bring him back.

More than once, Jon had meandered into a skittish elderly elk and tried to doze, only to have the wind knocked out of him as he was pulled back into his own head and into the broken pieces of a body that insisted on making him throb and burn and sting with every step he took.

“You’re avoiding it,” Gerard told him during one of their short breaks. “Avoiding living with yourself.”

Jon leveled a  _ look _ at Gerard, his brows drawn together, and he nodded. Because what else was he meant to do? Lie? He didn’t open his mouth to speak and Gerard didn’t push him, but Jon Knew the concern in him just as clearly as if he’d seen it.

“I shouldn’t have let you walk. I didn’t want to just pick you up against your will or... ” Gerard hesitated and Jon tensed, not because they were in immediate danger -- danger, yes; immediate, perhaps not -- but because he knew exactly what was coming. And because he didn’t want to be forced to listen to it.

Not that he had much of a voice now to even protest. Just when he’d expected Gerard to react with a little of the fire he’d witnessed earlier, he was offered kindness instead.

And somehow, against all logic, that hurt so much worse than his own pain. Jon could’ve been dragged kicking and screaming to torture, and he would’ve survived. This? His fingers trembled around the walking stick.

“I can still carry you and it won’t mean that you’re  _ weak _ , it only means that this is a very bad situation for both of us and I’m trying to make the best of it,” Gerard offered. Jon heard him exhale and had to remind himself that Gerard wasn’t in  _ his _ mind. That he couldn’t read his thoughts. “But I won’t force you.”

_ That is the problem, isn't it?  _ Jon thought; he  _ needed _ to be forced. The insidious voice in his mind sounded just like Elias.

He laughed, then. He almost didn’t sound like he’d ever been human. It was a choked thing, low and hoarse, almost mechanical in its duration; in the way he kept going and going until his lungs couldn’t support it anymore. Until Gerard squeezed his waist with both his arms and pulled him off the ground.

It really shouldn’t have been so easy to pick him up, but Jon was sickeningly light after everything.

“Jonathan!” Gerard’s lips touched the rim of his ear and a jolt ran through him.  _ Not so loud _ , he heard in his head, either the Archivist or his own internal voice. “If you keep leaving, there’ll be a point when you can’t come back into your own body.” He spoke quickly, the words rushing over one another. They hadn’t enough time for this, he was only stalling Jon’s breakdown.

“And I won’t be able to help you. No one will be able to help you then. It’s nice, I know, I’ve felt it myself, before... “ Gerard’s hair fell against Jon’s face when he shook his head, tickling the tip of his nose. “It doesn’t matter. But you can’t keep  _ leaving.” _

Gerard didn’t let him back down, holding tighter as they moved through rougher terrain. It wasn’t entirely painless, awkwardly carried in Gerard’s arms, with his legs bent at the knees and his arms tucked against cold leather, but it was an improvement and Jon would never complain.

Not when guilt plagued him instead: with every step he heard Gerard straining, heard his breath quicken and body tense. When he accidentally moved his arm against Gerard’s shoulder, he felt him flinch. He had seemed taller than Jon and definitely stronger -- especially now, the difference was brutal. But he hadn’t been prepared to carry his things  _ and  _ Jon.

Gerard had given Jon a chance to just admit that he needed help. And of course, Jon hadn’t accepted it. Now, they both paid the price for his… what? Hubris?

Gerard never complained. Not even when they walked into the early morning -- Jon heard familiar bird calls and wings flutter around them.

“I- I’m sorry,” Jon eventually said, breaking a silence that was really not silence at all. A silence that had somehow become a physical tension, a string pulled wide and taut. “For… everything.” Jon forced himself to breath deeply. “You’re wounded because of me, and now you’re suffering because of me. If you die…”

Gerard stopped him, lifting one finger to his lips. “We’ve gone through this already, Jonathan. If I died, it wouldn’t be your fault, even now. It was my own choice to be here, that led to  _ this _ . And I don’t regret it for one second. If I hadn’t been here, I’m not sure even the Archivist would’ve been able to keep you alive for much longer.”

If Gerard resented him, he didn’t show it and Jon wasn’t sure whether to be glad for that or not.

“Gerard…” he started and then stopped, realisation smacking him out of nowhere: he’d never actually spoken his name out loud in the man’s presence before. It was strange, he wasn’t even sure he was pronouncing it correctly, not like Gerard did in his own mind. It wasn’t the time to be self conscious, of that Jon was sure.

“Jonathan?”

“No one else knew where I was…” Jon said.  _ No one else bothered to find out,  _ he didn’t say. It wasn’t fair --  _ he  _ wasn’t being fair. “How did you find me?” It was more intent, more focused than anything else he was able to ask.

Gerard said, “You know where I  _ died?”  _ Jon had read the reports of his death once; he nodded against Gerard’s chest. “I’ve been staying around North America ever since. It’s not the best place at the worst of times, but it’s not too different from home. Not usually.”

It got lighter as Gerard spoke. Jon felt the temperature rise slightly and with it, the prickles of energy -- of life -- around him popped from wherever they’d slept through the night. Like a starlit sky, he imagined, without the stars, or the sky, or even colours.

“I followed a couple of sightings up here. People disappearing doesn’t usually goes as unnoticed as  _ they _ wish it did. I was camping nearby -- there have been a few interesting light phenomena -- when I felt something reach for me. That’s when I became aware that the Archivist had been taken.”

Jon didn’t  _ want _ to ask, but he needed to. “Does… is anyone else aware of my situation?” He felt the pressure in his chest ease a little. At the same time, the idea that no one knew was utterly exhausting and he curled tighter against Gerard. He didn’t feel Gerard flinch this time.

“Not that I know,” Gerard said. “I don’t make a habit of keeping in contact with my past, so I wasn’t able to inform your-”

“Just say it,” Jon sighed. “My  _ Master _ already knows.”

The Archivist stirred in him at the admission. It had no emotions -- nothing but an approximation drawn from its Knowledge and its host -- but Jon Knew its elation and he Knew it wasn’t his  _ own _ . He remembered Elias words; it revelled in the idea of casting Jon away and wearing him as its own. And Elias would just let it.

“He won’t have told anyone. I’m sure everyone you know has been fed some very convenient lies.”

Very briefly, Jon thought of Tim, and Martin, Melanie, Georgie, Basira or any of the others who might’ve guessed there was something wrong, and stopped himself immediately. He didn’t  _ want _ to wonder whether they’d tried to reach him. He didn’t want to dwell on it. He didn’t want to see them  _ die _ before his eyes, inside his head, all over again.

“No… I guess he wouldn’t.” Jon screwed his eyes shut in one futile attempt at casting away the memories of fire and wax and worms. He almost laughed again: they were permanently branded in his brain.

“It’s not your fault, Jonathan.” Gerard said.

_ Yes it is. If you’d been ready sooner, none of this would’ve ever happened, _ the Archivist told him.  _ If you’d been better, stronger, you would be back at the Institute already. _

_ “ _ I- I’m… so tired.”

Jon had never found the simple act of  _ talking _ so exhausting before and Gerard seemed to understand. He pulled on open flap of his jacket, covering part of Jon’s arms with it.

“Go back to sleep, Jon. I’ll take it from here,” he murmured after a while.

There must’ve been some sort of incline, a hill or that narrow point between one side of the valley and the other, Jon wasn’t sure, only that he suddenly became aware of how tightly he was pressed to Gerard. His ear was against Gerard’s collarbone, the rough skin above his shirt, and then slightly lower, and when the sound of Gerard’s steady heartbeat entered his mind, every other thought flew out. It was a little fast from exertion and not at all steady, speeding up and down as they moved, but it was soothing and Jon held onto it, drifting to and from sleep as they crossed the forest.

Eventually, even Gerard had to stop to rest. Carrying Jon during the early morning had not been kind to him and Jon Knew it when he couldn’t see, hear or otherwise sense his fatigue.

“Just a couple of minutes,” Gerard said. His voice sounded forced, like he hadn’t been able to catch his breath in too long. “We can’t afford to slow down for any longer.” But he didn’t gasp, didn’t stutter and Jon probably wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t become intimately acquainted with Gerard’s chest on the way there.

Gerard’s muscles were too rigid, and his motions jerky, automatic, almost. Even when Gerard lowered Jon to the ground, it was with the kind of gentleness that was still rough around the edges.

Jon immediately reached for his wrist, dragging Gerard down with him. He was weak enough that the fact that Gerard almost toppled over him made it obvious neither of them were in the kind of shape to go on.

“You need more than a couple of minutes,” Jon pointed out, surprisingly forcefully.

Two fingers stroked Gerard’s pulse, idly caressing his skin and that earned him some sort of half grunt and -- it happened a little too fast for Jon to understand but he was sitting on the ground, leaves and sticks poking between his stretched legs and… Gerard’s head was in his lap.

_ Oh. _

Jon paused, just a moment, and then awkwardly petted Gerard’s hair. It wasn’t… amazing, by any means. It wasn’t even soft, and Jon wished for both of them to just be able to get a shower -- he’d probably die before his next shower, at this rate. Still, it was relaxing, and he sighed softly, burying his fingers deeper and slowly working on disentangling any knots he found.

“Let me know if you hear, or if you Know anything,” Gerard told him, slurring the words a little as his body unwound.

Jon almost told him not to sleep, that he didn’t trust being alone with himself and if something happened, he would most likely never live through it anyway. He kept his mouth firmly shut and kept his hands firmly pressed to Gerard’s hair, grounding him. Even if his consciousness  _ urged _ him to flee, his body -- the physical sensations attached to it -- kept him from leaving.

And maybe he just didn’t want to have Gerard’s death on his hands.

No one had ever told him flying out was so…  _ addictive.  _ Maybe that’s how Elias had been caught, from one addiction to the other, right? Maybe that’s why Michael Crew had decided to flee the Spiral and enter the Vast. Jon could certainly understand that. Moreso now.

“Sleep,” Jon said, nearly biting his tongue with the lie, and he did his best at gently rubbing Gerard’s scalp, drawing his fingers across the top of his forehead and back up.

Gerard didn’t let go all at once. Jon heard his breath catch a couple times, shallow like he was about to gasp for air. His arms curled over Jon’s thighs and when he finally exhaled, it was a long, wheezy sound. Jon didn’t know if he was still awake and he couldn’t tell how long it was until Gerard was softly snoring on him, only that through the warmth spreading across his body and the way Gerard’s fingers twitched over his legs, Jon fell asleep too.

He didn’t even consider the danger.   
  


\---   
  


Jon fell. The back of his skull landed on something hard and for a long time, all he heard was a high-pitched ringing in his ears, the left one especially. There was a pressure on his throat and a sickening sense of vertigo that kept him from trying to sit back up.

Jon didn’t fall. Not really, not endlessly, this wasn’t the Vast. He was flat on his back, eyes open, staring upwards into absolutely  _ nothing _ . There was rock or a jagged bit of  _ something _ poking into his spine, but when heat should’ve bled through him, the Archivist took that pain and forced him to move instead.

He tried to.

A hand clawed at his throat. Nails dug into his windpipe and Jon’s entire body convulsed.  Confusion and white hot panic and the certainty that he was about to suffocate all rushed through him, too fast for even the Archivist to stop -- though maybe it just didn’t  _ want _ to.

_ Like cauterizing a wound. _ Jon didn’t know if it was his own thought.  _ With no expertise, he’d just kill you. _

It made no sense, Jon wanted it to just just end. “G-Gerard.” He fought to gasp with so little oxygen left in his lungs. “P-please.”

It was Gerard. The hand, the pressure, the fingers trying to throttle from his sleep, Jon Knew it even when Gerard himself didn’t. He wasn’t conscious, after all. His grip tightened and through the darkness, Jon  _ saw _ little white dots, peppering the corners of his vision. His mouth gaped open and for a second, he was almost sure Gerard was going to be the one to kill him.

Then it stopped.

_ Inside of Gerard’s mind, Jon saw a monster. It wasn’t him. He couldn’t be it. There was no way that thing was Jon. _

_ It looked like Jon; like a Jon he’d never -- would never -- see in a mirror. It was skinnier with more hair, burns cutting up and down his face, his eyes clouded, milky-off white and crusted over. Jon -- the real Jon, wanted to vomit at the sight. But he was Gerard, and he couldn’t. _

_ In Gerard’s dream, Jon -- the monster in him -- had long claws, the very tips of which were buried in Gerard’s forehead, reaching into his brain. There was no pain, though he knew Gerard’s agony nonetheless.  _

_ It pulled and Jon didn’t see himself, he saw Gerard fall to his knees, his head bowing as strands of wispy red floated between them. Jon knew then that he wasn’t in Gerard’s dream -- he  _ **_was_ ** _ Gerard’s dream and it flipped between the aggressor and the victim. He was the monster -- the Archivist -- and an unspeaking observer within himself. _

Somehow, Jon knew Gerard had one arm stretched between them, holding the monster by its neck, half upright when it slumped. There was a bloody, too many-eyed grin in its mouth, tongue lolling, eyelid-studded, down his chin.

Jon came back to himself all of a sudden. Like blinking, one moment he was there and the next he felt every ache coalesce in his body. He was real, and he was really gasping, so hard that drool ran down his lips and tears stung unshed in his eyes.

“Jon, Jon- oh, Jon,” Gerard voice was thick and despairing, his breath warm on Jon’s face. “I never… it wasn’t, Jonathan, you need to know what happened. I’m-” He stumbled in a way Jon had never heard before, not from Gerard. “I’m so sorry.”

Their positions seemed to have reversed themselves, with Gerard moving as he mumbled those breathless apologies over and over. Until Jon was held up, one arm over his hips and another cradling the back of his head, lowering him against Gerard’s chest once more.

“I'd never hurt you on purpose,” Gerard said, finally, his tone strangled, too tight. Jon didn't know why but he reached up to make sure he wasn't crying. He didn't want to be the one to have made Gerard Keay cry.

_ You have _ , the Archivist offered, just as Jon's fingertips brushed Gerard’s cheeks, slightly damp and too hot. Jon ignored him.

_ It's not your fault _ , he wanted to say. The Archivist agreed, it wasn't needlessly cruel and it wasn't Jon's fault. But he had broken him nonetheless. “You were… defending yourself,” Jon murmured, his voice a wreck.

“I don’t think my intent was the problem, Jonath- Jon,” Gerard said and Jon practically heard him struggle with himself.

Jon did too. His hand still cupped Gerard’s face and he didn’t move it even when Gerard leaned closer. It was strange: any other time and Jon would’ve been made plainly uncomfortable by the display of affection. Now?

He guessed they both needed something to hold on to.

Gerard’s nose nuzzled down Jon’s jaw and for one unnervingly long second, Jon was sure he was going to kiss him, and he was sure he’d let Gerard do it. But then he moved up and instead of a kiss -- a proper kiss -- Gerard grazed Jon’s forehead with his mouth and Jon had no idea why that was so disappointing.

It shouldn’t have been. He’d never considered any sort of… platonic, or, really,  _ any  _ sort attachment to Gerard. He’d never considered that after his rescue -- if they didn’t die on the way -- he might never see the man again.

Jon needed  _ more _ . He’d never survive this otherwise.

His grip on Gerard’s hair was light, but it kept him from moving away. “Gerard,” Jon started, unsure if he was even able to pinpoint his feelings, or what he’d meant to say.

“Jon? Did I hurt you?” Gerard asked and Jon had to stop himself from making a choked sound.

In the end, he opted to be direct, concise. Like maybe that’d hurt less if Gerard told him he’d leave anyway. “When are you leaving?”

“I’m not leaving you here Jon. Not after we’ve come this far,” Gerard said and it was stifled and confused, and so close that Jon  _ felt  _  every word against his skin. He wanted to laugh, he really did. He couldn’t, of course.

“No, that's not what I-" He couldn’t even shake his head; there was a fierce headache brewing between his temples, behind his eyes from when he'd hit the ground. His throat still ached from Gerard’s attack. “After this, I'm not... I don't want…”

“As soon as we're safe I'll be out of your life forever. I didn't mean to intrude but I couldn't leave you to  _ them _ .”

The worst thing was, Gerard actually sounded like he’d be fine doing just that -- although disappointed, perhaps. He squeezed Jon’s shoulder in what was probably meant to be reassurance; it felt like the exact opposite. But maybe it didn’t occur to him Jon  _ needed _ him the way he didn’t need Jon.

This time, Jon actually laughed, just a few clipped, sharp coughs. When he stopped, he knew that pressure in his tear-ducts that foretold… well, tears. “You don't have to do that. You're not intruding. I- I like- This is nice, you here…” He paused for a brief moment. “I… like you here. I like you.”

There. He’d said it. It was some sort of fucked up reverse Stockholm Syndrome, wasn’t it?

“Oh, Jonathan,” Gerard sighed. He reached to stroke Jon’s hair and immediately stopped, his whole body going stiff. “You’re bleeding from the back of your head,” he said, and Jon realized he’d missed the warm trickle down his scalp. “It’s probably nothing to worry about, I’m sure you’d know already if it was, but I need to check, okay?”

He added a moment later: “I didn’t mean to derail you, I’m- I’m not good with this either. If you don’t want me to leave, I won’t.”

“I need to… go back,” Jon offered quietly as he was laid on his side on the forest floor. His ankle protested the movement and a twinge of pain shot up his calf. Gerald knelt behind him, gloved fingers parting Jon's hair and prodding at the wound. “To the Institute. I don't want to force you to follow me.”

“You won't, I didn't come for you because of what you are,” Gerard said. Jon heard him root around his backpack and yelped when a sharp, icy liquid washed over a portion of his head. It felt like a multitude of razors trying to force themselves into him at once. “Sorry. I wasn't able to bring all of the supplies with me and this is all I've got. I could try to sew it but… not without you being aware of the risk.”

What Gerard didn't say was that it would hurt. What Gerard didn't need to be told was just how much worse Jon had had already.

“Jon, you have to answer me,” Gerard said. 

“I'd uh, I'd rather not bleed out from my head, if it's all the same to you.” Jon channeled some of his pain into crankiness. It didn't make him feel any better but it reminded him of a time when he wasn't terrified and broken and confused, and it felt good on his tongue.

“That's not an answer.”

No, Jon supposed it wasn’t. “Have you done it before?” Jon asked instead with the kind of finality that might as well have screamed ‘yes’. He hadn’t imagined a time when he might need to accept emergency medical treatment, before his third kidnapping. Now it was just another facet of his daily life, it seemed.

The pressure on his head eased a little and Jon heard the sound of something plastic being ripped open. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what. “Once or twice,” Gerard admitted. “To myself, never to others. It should be easier to do, but I can’t shave the area so it’ll be messy and… I’m not trying to hurt you, Jon.”

Jon felt Gerard knead that tender spot at the base of his neck. “I know. I would really rather not bleed out,” he said.

Gerard spoke quietly as he worked. Not about the thread or the suture needle held against Jon’s scalp; not about the silent agonized expression in Jon’s face -- though he wasn’t entirely sure Gerard could see it -- or the tears that  _ finally  _ poured down his cheeks when he hiccuped. Not even about the way Jon’s hands crushed Gerard’s leg, tight enough he felt the muscle pulse under his fingers. His story -- not a statement, Jon remembered -- was simple and oddly familiar.

Books and a kid and  _ monsters.  _ Jon couldn’t follow it entirely through the haze of pain, but he recognized some of its details.

“There, it’s done,” he said just as Jon felt a tug on his head and a cloth -- Gerard’s shirt, maybe, it smelled of sweat and blood -- touch the skin beneath his eyes, rubbing steady circles on his skin. “I hope that wasn’t too much for you, Jon.”

Jon gave it another pathetic attempt at shaking his head and croaked a tiny ‘no’. At least his headache had been replaced with the kind of pain he could just  _ take. _ When Gerard ran the flat of his palm across Jon’s shoulder, he took it as a the signal to collapse back into his arms. He was too tired to think; too tired to do anything but lay there and Know that if it had been the other way around, he wasn’t sure he’d been able to save Gerard.

Still, he hoped he wasn’t too weak to let anything happen to Gerard.

“Come on Jon, don’t fall asleep now,” Gerard told him after a moment or two in silence. He didn’t shake Jon, but brought slowly manoeuvred them back up, with Jon’s head lolling back over his shoulder. “There’s a good chance you have concussion, and that’s not something I can just fix.”

_ Another  _ concussion, Jon wanted to add. At this point, he wasn’t sure Gerard wasn’t concussed himself, or at least, somehow damaged by his proximity to the Archivist. “I’m not…” he slurred, blinking his eyes open and watching the darkness, like that’d be the one thing to keep him awake. No, not the dark. The  _ guilt. _

“If you can, try to keep talking. I’m not sure how long we have left until the road, but I’d rather neither of us sleeps on the way. There’ll be plenty of time for that,” he added, “later.”

Around him, the world turned on its side -- Jon felt it in the pit of his stomach, felt Gerard move and vaguely wondered the sort of effort that took to stand up while dragging Jon along with him. The kind that made his hands grip Jon’s waist too tightly and his muscles flutter wildly against him.

In Gerard’s defense, he didn’t falter even once.

“I’m- I’m not sure there anything I can… talk about,” Jon murmured, still clinging to that vague hope Gerard might not notice if he just… slipped away for a moment; not away from himself but the living world nonetheless.

It wouldn’t happen, neither Gerard nor the Archivist would let him get away with it if there was any danger to his…  _ structure _ , to this vessel -- the only thing he was now, it seemed. Still, there was a calming effect in thinking about sleep, when his eyes drooped and his head fell forward, face buried in the crook of Gerard’s neck.

Gerard sighed, though there was no real disappointment in the sound, maybe a tickle gleeful instead. “I guess I’ll have to do the talking for both of us, again. Is there anything you want to hear about?”

Within, the Archivist prickled its ears -- it had none, of course, but the mental image was clear _ \--  _ and it forced Jon to pay closer attention. “Before, when you… um, were sewing my head, what did you mean about a book?” Jon only knew he hadn’t meant to  _ ask _ because his mouth had that a strange, stuffed-full of cotton balls feeling, and he didn’t remember his tongue moving.

If Gerard  _ noticed _ it, he was still happy to answer this one question for the Archivist. “You know my mother was obsessed with her Leitners. That one wasn’t any different -- the Hunter’s Trophy, I remember the title, obnoxious little thing. I imagine it’s long gone by now, thankfully.”

“You… saved me,” Jon said. He’d never told anyone else this -- not anyone who believed him -- and he hadn’t expected to ever tell  _ Gerard  _ himself. “Back then, I didn’t- I had no idea about any of it. I remember you…” 

“You remember that scrawny kid I used to be?” Gerard laughed, it was a lovely sound, soft and amiable, no edges at all. It filled Jon’s chest with the promise they’d survive and the promise of  _ more. _ Just more; more everything.

“Huh, a bit? It’s been a long time,” Jon admitted, his words were muffled by Gerard’s jacket, the leather cool and smooth, sliding up and down with Gerard’s every step. “I remember I…  _ liked _ you then, too.” This wasn’t the Archivist forcing the emotions out of him, this was Jon admitting to his  _ stupid _ childhood crush, wasn’t it?

Heat rushed up his head, his cheeks felt like they were going to  _ melt _ off.

“I’m not sure there was much to like,” Gerard said, Jon Knew he was smiling. It soothed his nerves a little. “And I didn’t save you. I wish I could have. The best I could do was offer some comfort. But I’m glad to hear it was enough.”

Maybe  _ enough _ wasn’t the right word. It hadn’t been  _ enough,  _ but it’d been the only thing Jon had to hold on to. And he’d spent too many nights awake, thinking back on the tattooed stranger and his wonderful coat. After everyone had abandoned the possibility he  _ might be not be lying,  _ Gerard was all he had had left.

“Gerard, can you-” Jon stopped, his fist wrapped around a lock of Gerard’s hair and he tugged gently. Gerard stopped walking and the sudden motion made his foot twinge, Jon gritted his teeth and continued. “That night, I remember you… told me something, I don’t know what. I could ask…  _ it _ , but- tell me?”

Their faces were close again, so close that Jon shivered when Gerard’s lips caressed the lobe of his ear. Then Gerard told him.   
  



	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monsters aren't predictable.

“We’re almost there,” Gerard said, perhaps for the fifth time in a row.

The sun had risen and peeked through a cover of clouds thick enough that half the forest’s bottom layer was engulfed in shadows. Jon knew this through the eyes of a falling bird, one he’d momentarily gripped before noticing its tiny body was being carried by a larger creature. He’d left after that. It’d been a second -- maybe less than that, his awareness of time was limited through animal’s eyes -- and he’d been more concerned with the sensation of death and decay and the  _ endless emptiness. _

And the knowledge that it would all happen to him if the Archivist had its way. And that he had no way of stopping it.

“I’m not asleep,” he replied, tugging on Gerard’s jacket with his hands, just for the sake of remembering he wasn’t a dying vessel  _ yet.  _ “Stop trying to wake me up.”

Thankfully, Gerard hadn’t noticed the absence. Or maybe he just hadn’t brought it up, choosing instead to chuckle and brush a kiss to the top of Jon’s head. Jon was very glad for the little reprieve, and let his thoughts slide idly, his eyes fluttering shut and his consciousness expanding, for a lack of a better word.

_ When you lose your grip and you think that this didn’t happen, that you’re insane? Remember me. _

It was hardly groundbreaking, but Jon had gasped and he’d almost pleaded for Gerard to do something -- anything -- that he couldn’t take  _ knowing _ he’d never really left him at all. Gerard had hugged him tighter, mumbled that  _ he was still right there _ , that  _ he wasn’t going anywhere. _ It was sweet and sappy and it had lasted maybe thirty seconds, before they had to move on and keep trekking through the woods.

Still, it had changed whatever was going on between them _. _ Jon couldn’t stop mulling over it, over the words and the mutual affection and the way Gerard’s breath would wash over him every time he exhaled.

That’s why he missed the presence when it first brushed past him.

The Archivist, on the other hand, was keenly aware and its voice, given form, sounded a lot like Elias inside Jon’s head:  _ Your interpersonal revelations are unimportant, Jon. You’re in danger. Can’t you see it? _ it said, followed by a wave of disappointment that froze him to the bone.

_ That _ , Gerard  _ did  _ notice. He lifted Jon’s head a little as he walked, careful to avoid the sutures and the bruised flesh, pressing the familiar shape of his nose to Jon’s jaw. It was -- Jon now knew -- his own way of showing Jon his concern, when he couldn’t see it on Gerard’s face.

“Jon? Is there something wrong?”

_ Gerard has his uses, but you can’t keep using him as a crutch,  _ the Archivist-Elias said,  _ after this is done, you should get rid of him.  _ And  _ yes, that wouldn’t be too hard while he is still,  _ it seemed to reply to itself.

Jon stifled a yelp. He had no way of squashing the Archivist down and was left impossibly aware of the creature closing in on them. A streak of red when he pushed past his own fear, for Gerard mostly, and tried to follow its jerky movements through the forest. It was too close -- far too close to run, even if Jon had been able to do it.

“There’s one of them coming, you have to run,” he said very quickly, hoping and urging Gerard to drop him and escape. His heart sped in his chest, too fast, off-beat. He could barely keep up with the words that tried fall from his lips. “It won’t kill me, probably, but you will die if you stay here and I can’t-  _ I can’t _ -” he bit out. “Please.”

_ Gerard could distract it while you escape, _ Jon thought, and it wasn’t his own idea.

_ Escape to where, Archivist? Gerard's the one with the contact on the road. Do you think they're just going to pick me- us up and leave him behind?  _ he offered with the fraught hope the Archivist wouldn’t see through his bluff. Jon had no idea if he wouldn’t be able to compel anyone into taking him back to Grande Prairie.

The Archivist did. It had no more thoughts for him, only a quiet chuckle.

“I’m not leaving you here,” Gerard said and immediately, Jon knew all at once that he wouldn’t be able to convince Gerard or change his mind. He heard it in the stiff inflection and felt it in the way Gerard’s whole body seemed to curve protectively around his.

He still had to _try._ “If you stay here, I-- I can’t, you’ll die and I can’t, _you can’t die because of me.” No one should die because of me_ , was what Jon didn’t need to say. “Or you’ll get turned into one of them and _I…_ _You can’t.”_

“I’ve told you before, Jon. I don’t plan to fight it and I don’t plan to die here. How close is it?”

Gerard eased one arm down, Jon heard his backpack fall nearby, and then he was gently lowering Jon down to sit on... something much firmer than packed earth and leaves, a large boulder, perhaps. It was smooth, and Jon flattened his palms against it, holding himself up with his feet barely touching the ground.

He closed his eyes, it made no difference really but it was easier to focus when he could feel his facial muscles tense. “It's not even a mile off, it's right on our track. It keeps, um, stopping and it’s moving strangely.” He clawed at stone, forcing himself to  _ touch _ the creature’s consciousness without being sucked into its madness. “It may be wounded.”

“That would be helpful but I’m not going to count on it,” Gerard replied, gently patting one of Jon’s knees. “There’s something else I’m going to do, and it won’t be pleasant, not exactly. Not for you, and I’m sorry, but I can’t let them get you  _ again _ .”

Once again, Jon didn’t think he had a choice, he was quite literally caught between a rock and that monster. He only stiffened when Gerard crawled behind him, his legs parting around Jon’s hips. Gerard wasn’t overly rough, and he scooted forward until Jon’s back was pressed onto him.

“What are you doing?”

“Hopefully keeping both of us hidden,” he said as he reached for Jon’s hands, gripping both his wrists with barely any force at all, facing up towards the invisible skyline. “Keep them like this, just a moment.”

Jon would’ve -- had already -- trusted Gerard with his life. He obeyed, waiting for something, anything. For the pain that really  _ never _ came.

His nose twitched as a dizzying scent wafted around them. It was followed by a ticklish sensation against the skin of his palms. A brush -- a marker pen? Jon was glad he couldn’t see it, he didn’t need to know what kind of designs Gerard embedded into him, or the kind of grime that must cover the entirety of their bodies.

“That was the easy part,” Gerard said. He was anxious about something, Jon didn’t need to touch his mind to Know it -- he didn’t even need to Know it, he could feel it bleeding from him. “Now for the difficult part.”

Jon didn’t notice Gerard had taken his gloves off until his hands closed around him. Its texture was all wrong -- too rough and smooth all at once, like they were covered -- no, like his skin  _ was  _ one huge scar. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, overwhelmed by the suddenness of the thoughts that rushed him: _ Fire. Agony. _

_ Death. _

Gerard mouthed Jon’s ear, in return he jolted back, surprised and mildly confused. It wasn’t sexual, Jon was perfectly aware of that. Then it clicked: Gerard needed Jon to relax, needed him to let go of the tension before he could hide them both. His tongue flickered over its lobe and Jon was so distracted by the wet heat that tried to slip down his neck, that he didn’t notice Gerard working with his hands until--

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Jon cried out, spine arching away from Gerard’s chest. His attempts at wrenching himself free from the clasp of Gerard’s fingers were met with an unflinching, iron grip, holding tighter the harder Jon struggled. “ _ Gerard! _ ”

“It’s not permanent, you’ll be free within your own body soon enough, Archivist.” Gerard was kissing the tears that tried to erupt from his eyes, his voice barely a whisper. “But unless you want Jonathan to die, you will let him go for now.”

That was the worst part, it didn’t really  _ hurt _ . Not in any way quantifiable way. His pain was entirely… supernatural: in his own mind. It was like a worm, or a hook, or an anchor whose rope had been pulled tight and then snapped in two by an invisible wall. The Archivist was left stranded away from its host and Jon knew enough to realise it would not survive too long -- not in its current form -- without him.

The Archivist did too. Its anger had no words, it was not spoken and Jon couldn’t listen to it. It was a furious storm, petering out in the distance, its existence slamming through the gaps in Gerard’s shield, taking bits and pieces from Jon and molding them to itself before it faded for  _ good _ .

That was what caused his discomfort, Jon knew.

Not that it mattered, because as the Archivist finally ceased its attempt to hold the two of them together, Jon collapsed against Gerard with a quiet, breathless sob and soon after, what he’d felt was replaced by much, much worse pain.

The Archivist had kept him from the worst of it; it’d kept him moving and held back his pain and without its presence, it all rushed back into him.  

Jon was too cold, too numb, assaulted from every side by mindless agony, the likes of which he’d not felt since Carla had burned his eyes. Maybe not even then. He lost control, and it was Gerard’s hand on his face that kept him from screaming any louder.

He was barely aware of his jaw working around Gerard’s burnt skin, trying to bite him, fighting him as he fought his own body, spasming and convulsing and salivating all over both of them; barely aware what Gerard was telling him, the words slipping out of his mind as quickly as they’d entered.

“You’re going into shock and you’re going to try to slip away. It's not going to work without it but if you do… you might not survive.” Gerard held him close, kissing and stroking whatever part of Jon he could reach. “ I'm sorry, I had no other choice.“

Jon knew he was right, of course. His arms and legs twitched weakly and he felt himself fade, not far away, into an icy white void that rung with promises of sweet oblivion.

“It's coming now, so try to be quiet, it won't matter if we're hidden if it can hear us.”

Jon didn't know if he made a noise, he didn't even know if that was Gerard’s tongue lapping at the outer rim of his ear or if he'd actually died and gone somewhere better -- like he'd ever believed in the idea of a cosmic power judging souls into its separate realms.

His eyes fell shut and he knew of nothing but floating weightless in a balmy sea, and of a soothing pull, much like being dragged underwater, only  _ better. _

He fell.

“Jon!”  
  


\---  
  
  


Howling, so loud and so anguished it hurt the back of his head with its vibrations.

Jon shuddered, trying to cover his ears with his hands and failing. He couldn’t move. He came back slowly, his every ache, every little twinge of his muscles becoming apparent one by one. His legs were drawn up, knees on his chest, and both of his arms were pinned behind him -- and he was, somehow, half curled in Gerard’s lap.

Gerard -- Jon had forgotten him for a moment -- was right there, pulling hair from his eyes, rubbing the sore spot in the small of his back with deft fingers, mouthing words that Jon couldn’t hear over the sound of that dreadful, mournful crying.

Jon had heard it before, though he couldn't remember where or what it meant. Only that he  _ couldn’t wait for it to stop. _

If the Archivist had been present, maybe he could’ve identified the individual creature now that it was so close to them. But his power was a gaping hole in Jon’s chest, raw and empty and craving more -- and that wasn’t the Archivist, that was Jon himself, craving the knowledge that had been taken from him.

He tried to open his mouth, tried to form questions that insisted on being stuck down his throat, and was shushed by a pressure on his lips. It didn’t hurt, but that barely mattered when everything else  _ did.  _ It was coarse and warm, and Jon was briefly struck by the thought that Gerard hadn’t put his gloves back on yet, and maybe that was his own way of showing him sympathy; maybe that  _ hurt _ him back.

The creature wandered closer, Jon heard it move through the underbrush. It seemed to take a few steps at a time, stop to do that horrible howling, and then continue on in its slow shuffle.

Behind him, Gerard shuddered, holding on to Jon a little tighter. That’s how he knew the creature had appeared in his field of vision. He wanted to ask -- wanted to know, wanted to slip inside his head and  _ see _ it with Gerard’s own eyes. And he couldn’t.

“It’s… dragging something,” Gerard said, nearly silent against the side of Jon’s face. “A corpse- no, I know that belt, it’s dragging the same corpse it left back at my campsite. I don’t understand what it’s trying to do,” he admitted.

Jon did -- it came to him in a flash. Well, maybe not  _ understand,  _ but he thought he knew what it was doing, and the answer was so horrifying it was actually funny.

His next attempt at speaking was slightly more successful, and even Gerard’s fingers on him didn’t keep Jon from mumbling between the cracks. “S-sam,” he tried to say. “H-he’s… a friend.” It was ridiculous, of course, he couldn’t tell it was Sam -- not for sure, though nothing else made sense -- and even then, Gerard wasn’t part of the Hunt, would he be safe?

“Sam?” Gerard repeated. “Oh, yes, it seems to know that name. It knows we’re here, sound is much harder to keep hidden than sight or our  _ presences.  _ But it shouldn’t be able to pinpoint our exact location, or attack us.” He didn’t sound relieved by the revelation.

“He w-won’t- I n-need, can’t-” Jon gasped. The void in his chest seemed to stretch wider, deeper, with every second he was torn from the Archivist. “Please.”

Sam -- what was probably Sam -- snuffed around them. It didn’t touch, but he heard it clearly as it padded loose circles on the forest’s floor and that stench of rot and decay drifted in the breeze, and tried not to dwell on the way he could  _ almost _ feel its presence, imperceptible save for a faded halo that vanished whenever he set his mind on it.

“If you’re wrong, Jonathan,” Gerard said. He shifted subtly, easing some of the weight on Jon’s arms, allowing them to slip free between them. “After it can sense you, I- I guess at least I have this fucking gun. But I’m not leaving you.”

Jon Knew Gerard  _ knew _ that without the Archivist he wouldn’t make it for long enough to get any serious help, either with or without Sam in the picture. Maybe that’s why he relented, Jon wasn’t sure, just  _ glad _ .

“I’m just sorry for putting you through this for no reason.” Gerard kissed his forehead, boldly this time, taking his time to caress Jon’s cheek with his own.

Jon wanted to say that it wasn’t Gerard’s fault, and that he didn’t blame him, but his voice was gone, replaced by tiny wheezes as he clung to consciousness. He heard Sam whine and what might’ve been the sound of it pawing at the ground, coming from somewhere nearby.

Quickly, almost  _ too  _ quickly, Gerard ran that pen across one of Jon’s palms and then the other, drawing straight lines over -- well, Jon didn’t know -- over whatever design he’d marked him with. Its effect was immediate and Jon sighed softly as he fell back  _ within himself. _

The Archivist slipped inside as smoothly as fitting a glove, stretching to reach every part of Jon and tone down his endless suffering. Almost immediately after, it wrenched control of their body, effectively thrusting Jon into the back of his own mind for a few moments.

“If you do this again, I will kill you,” Jon heard himself hiss, teeth bared in a fierce grimace. And then, as Jon grappled control of his own mouth. “Oh holy fuck, I’m so sorry, I- I didn’t-”

Jon wasn’t sure whether to be horrified at the Archivist and its ability to simply shove him aside, Gerard’s own ability to hide, or to just be grateful that it bit back and toned down every ache in his body. Possibly all three of them, though not at once.

“I know,” Gerard replied, like the fact the Archivist had just threatened to kill him wasn’t at all important. “Your friend is standing an inch or two to your left, if you-” Without releasing Jon’s arm, he moved it to the side, until Jon’s fingers touched a warm, furred surface.

_ You’re lucky this  _ thing _ is not likely to kill you, otherwise you and Keay would be gone already. _

Sam was surprisingly  _ soft _ , its fu -- or hair -- was dense and long and Jon’s fingers tangled in it, stroking what might’ve been its flank or shoulder with the same kind of intent he’d done Gerard, albeit more tentative than before. When it turned its head, its fetid breath washed over them and Gerard immediately tensed, arms protectively wrapped around Jon.

“It looks friendly enough,” Gerard muttered and Jon knew he was forcing himself to speak; that he was far from comfortable with the situation. “I mean, your Sam looks friendly enough, and it seems it’s brought us… a snack.”

Jon made a baffled noise and Gerard continued, resting his face closer to Jon’s. “I can only  _ assume _ that’s what it meant to do when it broughts us that corpse. It doesn’t fit with the kind of behaviour I’d expect from a creature of the Hunt but...” He shrugged. “It could be a rogue.”

“It’s not going to hurt us.”  _ Not with its antlers or its teeth or its claws, anyway. _

The smell was atrocious, somewhere along the lines of days-old roadkill or that one time Jon had forgotten his leftovers in the fridge for far too long _ ,  _ and much worse than either. Jon was torn between continuing to stroke it -- ignoring the things that’d sometimes wriggle across his fingers -- or trying to get as far away as possible.

But it was only when Sam keened softly, stomping on the ground and rubbing more of itself towards the two of them, that Jon paused.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Gerard said. “Be careful it’s about to-” Before he had time to finish, Jon felt Sam pull away just as Gerard yanked him back. It was followed by a loud crackling, like thunder, and a brief light spray that he was sure covered both of them.

Despite the smell, Jon was thankful the viscous liquid didn’t burn on his skin. It  _ only _ reeked.

“It’s… It rolled on its back, I think it wants you to rub its belly,” Gerard said, haltingly, heaving sharply. He was -- though Jon didn’t notice until he was being moved aside -- trying not to vomit on either of them.

Jon winced when he heard Gerard gag, reaching to squeeze his -- leg, it felt like -- reassuringly. “Are you going to be okay?” Nearby, Sam whinged for attention, its shrill cries were pitiful and near continuous. 

It didn't quieten until Jon hopped from the boulder, biting back a displeased twinge of pain, and smoothed his hands over its distended abdomen.

“I'll be fine… I've had worse. Not recently, but I have,” Gerard eventually replied, slightly breathless still. Jon wished he could  _ see _ him, that he could make any of it better.

When Gerard’s hand stretched towards his shoulders, Jon allowed himself to lean back ever so slightly, waiting for Gerald to settle, knelt upright behind him again, before relaxing. He didn't see or feel it as such, but he knew Gerard peeked little glances at Sam, and he Knew his distaste.

“I can only hope it won't try to follow us towards civilization,” he said. “For its sake, and ours.”

Jon understood, he really did. But then Sam rumbled against him and Jon continued to pet him. Its belly was taut, bloated and slick, and beneath his palms, shoving against them, separated only by a thin layer of clammy skin, Jon felt… writhing movement. He didn't need or want to know  _ what. _

“I didn't mean to make it find us, I'm not sure I could've lasted long enough for…” he tried to explain, to make sense of anything that’s happened within the past -- couple hours? Losing the Archivist, finding Sam, none of it seemed  _ real. _

“Jon, I know. I  _ know _ ,” Gerard sighed. “I wasn't blaming you.” His forehead rested on the top of Jon’s back, on the dip of his spine, and his hair tickled Jon’s neck. “I can only hope that the rest of them won’t follow, but that’s not your fault. I should’ve known it would be impossible to escape them. Or taken better precautions.”

_ Gerard blames himself, not only for hurting him, but for failing him now. _ It was such an absurd thought, such an utterly ridiculous idea that Jon couldn’t keep himself from making a strangled noise; and, when Gerard moved, concern colouring every motion, from shaking his head fiercely.

“It’s... not your fault,” Jon said. Though numbed by the Archivist, his throat still hurt. “You…  _ saved-” No.  _ Not the right sentiment. “If we die here, I’m still glad you tried and I’ll- I’ll still remember you.”

It really was its own kind of pain, that.

“Well, I still don’t plan to die here, and neither will you, so you might not have to hold on to memories,” Gerard said. It wasn’t wholly reassuring, but it was  _ something. _

Jon didn’t know why he smiled when Gerard’s arms squeezed him tighter. Maybe because, even if he couldn’t believe Gerard’s words, it was still nice to think about it; to allow himself some hope again _. _ He slumped, letting Gerald catch him.

Sam kicked its legs, flopping on its side with a big huff and restarted its whining. It didn’t really stop until Jon brushed its side, raking his nails as hard as he could over its furry hide, and even then, it wasn’t silent, only slightly quieter than before.

“What do we do?” Jon wasn’t sure he was asking Sam, Gerard, or neither of them.

_ I could take it away,  _ the Archivist offered at once. It was pleased and… Jon couldn't be sure, smug _. Scatter its mind or push it into something else.  _ He saw, behind his own eyes, flashes of a Beholding with fur and feathers and curved dagger teeth; one that didn't Know or listen but devoured the knowledge from its prey directly.

“We will have to leave it behind, there’s really nothing else either of us can do to help and I’m not sure anyone else can.”

In his mind, Jon saw himself, fingers buried into Gerard’s brain.

“No!” He didn’t even notice he’d spoken out loud until he felt Gerard pulled him up and back down, to sit on his lap, closer.  _ No, no, you’re- I’m not letting that happen!  _ Jon thoughts were furious, a sudden  _ heat  _ ablaze in him.  _ If you touch him, I’ll-   _ He had nothing to wager with.  _ I’ll destroy this vessel you’re so attached to. It would be hard, taking statements without a body, correct? _

Not that the thought of dying didn’t scare him -- but between death and letting the Archivist take over; between sacrifice and allowing this monster to do terrible things while  _ wearing  _ Jon’s body,  the choice was very clear.

_ Why would you do anything like that, Jonathan?  _ It was Elias again, voice distorted, guffawing as it echoed from impossibly far away.  _ What about all your friends? _

Even Sam seemed to notice something was happening. It shuffled over Jon’s legs, its head resting on him, its nose cold and wet against Jon’s hands, calming when the urge to flee, or tear at his clothes, or scream all rushed over him.

“I wish there was more to be done here, I’m not… happy with it myself, but we need to pick up the pace and I can’t lead Sam -- or the rest of them -- closer to the city,” Gerard said and Jon wanted to disagree. He’d been taken from Grande Prairie, they were already right there.

He didn’t say anything, too overwhelmed at the Archivist -- at Elias, at their fucking  _ Master  _ \-- to trust himself with words.

“Come on, Jon,” Gerard said, when Jon made no move to speak. “We can’t stay here. If Sam found us, the rest mustn’t be too far behind.”

_ If you don’t get going, all your anger will mean nothing,  _ the thought rang through his head, and Jon wasn’t entirely sure  _ whose  _ it was.  _ If you are captured again, your pointless death will be denied, and Keay, well, I’m sure he’d make a fine Hunter. _

He was limp when Gerard picked him up, and only jerked up as the treacherous image of one of these monsters with Gerard’s hair forced itself into his head -- all photo-realism and too much detail. It had Gerard’s tattoos, his unblinking eyes were glazed over,  _ dead  _ and  _ hungry. _

If he wasn’t already on the verge of retching, that might’ve tipped him over. But the smell was worse than the picture in his head and Jon had to ignore it. He tried to hold onto something that was not entirely awful _.  _ Like the way Gerard nuzzled his face and comforted him every time Jon whimpered.

Sam trotted beside them, his hooves sometimes striking stone. But Jon didn’t even need his ears to know this, at least not as long as he had his nose.

Through the Archivist, he was faintly aware of all the animals in the forest running from them, scattering in frantic, random directions as they passed. And away, too far away to tell for sure how many of them there were, a blinding, frenetic, crimson ball of unnatural consciousnesses hurtled in their direction.

Jon’s heart sank in his chest, beating too fast. “Can you… free him? Not  _ death _ ,” Jon corrected himself. “The… what you did to me, can you take it- can you take Sam from her?”

Gerard continued walking. If he didn’t know any better -- which he did, he’d been  _ in _ Gerard’s mind more than once -- Jon would’ve taken it as being unwilling to help: he could practically feel the unhappiness radiate off him. But he knew better than to doubt whatever… kindness or guilt or sense of honour drove the man.

“I’m not- I can’t make him stop following us, otherwise,” he explained. He had no idea how to make Sam  _ know _ it couldn’t follow them and he wasn’t about to ask the Archivist for its advice, either. “But I…  _ feel _ them, the others are after us.”

“It won’t be easy, not for me or for… Sam,” Gerard replied. “I’ve never tried it with the Hunt before.”

“Gerard.” The name still felt strange in his tongue, it had a weight no other word seemed to, the syllabes their own cadence. “I- It’s our only chance. Unless you can run with me, we’re not- they’re too fast.”

Gerard finally stopped. “If you can make sure it stays still, I can try,” he didn’t try to hide the groan, quickly placing Jon down so he could fetch whatever he needed from his bag. “Hold it close to you.”

Sam was close enough that Jon barely had to move to wrap his arms over its body. It was much larger than Jon had originally imagined, and he could barely reach across its shoulders and the jagged edge of what he could only assume was its spine poking through its torn skin. Bristly fur and longer hair fell over him as Sam tried to lie on his lap, like a small dog would have, but much heavier.

“It’s okay… It’s okay,” he told Sam, unsure if the creature could actually understand him, or the sentiment behind his words. Jon guessed it didn’t really matter _._ “You’ll be okay, we won’t let anything anything happened to you.”

If Gerard disagreed, he kept it to himself.

“After it’s done, I can’t be sure if it’ll turn on us, if it’ll run or even if it’ll understand anything that’s happening. Its mind might be too damaged by the transformation to cope with being  _ free.  _ Or not, I don’t know.”

Sam’s cries and the way it’d shiver, were the only hints Jon had that  _ something _ was happening. He held it closer, ignoring the wet heat that crawled over his thighs and the sloshing in Sam’s belly when it shifted positions.

It was hard to try to soothe a  _ monster _ and even harder to soothe a monster while Jon’s own body was currently soaked to the bone in its… rotting juices. He tried to ignore it. “Yeah, like that. You like this?” he whispered when Sam leaned its head on him, its tangled antlers brushing his face.

“Almost done, hold it for a second longer,” Gerard said, sounding more and more strained by the moment.

“There.” Jon felt Gerard’s fingers over on his, holding Sam down and --

Everything happened at once, in a blur of motion he couldn’t see, and sound and pain. Sam reared up, screaming so loud it must’ve pierced something in his ears. Jon wasn’t sure, only that he was thrown up and his fall was followed by an awful bone-cracking noise and a terrified screech.

Sam? Jon tried to open his eyes -- everything was dark, and the Archivist was a dull ache compared to the explosions of agony that shot through his muscles, across the top of his chest and lower.

After another moment, he couldn’t even tell if he was moving; if he’d  _ stopped _ or everything else had. He couldn’t tell if Gerard was still there, not until his voice breached through the shadows.

“Jon? Jon- fuck.” Gerard felt so,  _ so _ far away, too far away to reach. Jon held onto a thread of his presence with his mind -- to his familiarity -- for the lack of anything else. “ _ Don’t you dare let him die.” _

Jon wasn’t sure he’d spoken, he couldn’t  _ hear  _ himself _ , _ only Gerard’s panicked reply, distorted as if spoken through a layer of foam.

“Sam is fine, he’s alive, he’ll be fine, I- fuck fuck  _ fuck _ , I should’ve- Just stay with me.”

Jon wanted to say that he would, that he couldn’t leave _Gerard_ , but that was a lie too, wasn’t it? He couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing or if the taste in his mouth was the life leaking out of him. Even the _Archivist_ had left him now. So why not follow, why not leave _himself?_

Jon didn’t -- he didn’t want to disappoint Gerard, he guessed. But he couldn’t hold on for too long, and after a short or a long time -- he couldn’t tell which -- everything faded away.  
  


\---  
  


“You sure you didn’t just kill that guy?” someone spoke, it echoed like a ripple in a lake, through Jon’s waning consciousness.

Gerard -- it had to be Gerard, he’d find him  _ anywhere  _ \-- was the one to reply. “You think that I would- just  _ fucking drive,  _ or you’ll be in trouble, I swear it.”

Then so much softer and a little closer _.  _ “You’ll be okay, I promise, Jon. This is my fault all over again, and I’m- I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Jon  _ needed _ to tell him he couldn’t feel anything, but of course, he couldn’t do that, either.  
  


\---  
  


Sirens.

“Almost there,” Gerard said from somewhere above him.

He probably held Jon in his arms. Jon remembered that, those memories felt nice in his head, though not as nice as the delightful warm fuzzy sensation that wrapped over him, like a lovely silky blanket.

His pain flaked away all at once, until there was nothing but Gerard’s voice whispering those lovely things in his ear followed by a sleep entirely devoid of dreams.


	9. Interlude: Gerard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past couple of days haven't been easy for Gerard either.

One hour, forty five, give or take a couple minutes.

It wasn’t the longest ride of his life, though it certainly felt that way and Gerard alternated between staring out through black-tinted windows and watching the life -- and all colour-- slowly seep from Jon’s face. Outside he saw green on green, interspersed with off-white snow and brown, trees spanning endlessly in every direction but forward. Inside, carefully nestled in his arms, smothered in black leather and bright red blood, Jon was pale as a ghost.

He still didn’t know why he’d agreed to Jon’s request. It made no sense; it was far too high a risk to try and release that poor creature from the Hunt’s chains. But he had, and they’d both suffered the consequences.

 _Compelled._ He’d been compelled, hadn’t he? Or was it his own compulsion to _help?_ Jon hadn’t _known_ what he was doing, and honestly, neither did Gerard. It shouldn’t have been possible -- he hadn’t suffered through tattooing burnt skin for _nothing,_ only he’d obeyed because he liked Jon, because he didn’t want this Sam to suffer any longer.

It was stupid, he’d been an idiot. Hindsight being twenty twenty and all that.

The problem was, it had worked. And without the Hunt keeping it leashed tight, Sam had bolted and he’d almost taken Jon with him. There was very little Gerard could do about the broken antler impaled in Jon’s side and he hadn’t time to look at his other injuries -- or his own -- before that awful howling had found them.

Gerard still didn’t know how he’d ran half a mile without exhausting himself. Adrenaline, probably.

Thankfully, his contact’s jeep had been waiting for them; thankfully the guy hadn’t asked too many questions and had sped up as soon as Gerard had urged him to; thankfully, though they did try to follow, the pack of monsters couldn’t keep up with their vehicle.

Thankfully, Jon wasn’t dead yet.

“Just hang on for a little longer,” Gerard whispered, leaning down to brush the hair out of Jon’s eyes. “We’ll be there soon and you’ll be fine, I’ll make sure of that.”

Gerard wasn’t sure the promise was really in his hands, but he knew he’d find a way to tear the Archivist to shreds if he let Jon die. That was his threat, the one that didn’t need words or a voice, unspoken and _real._

“And whatever happens,” he continued, so quiet he didn’t hear himself over the sound of his heart thumping in his ears, “I’m not leaving you, don’t forget that.”

Stupid. Fucking. Sentiment. But he couldn’t help himself -- he’d not been able to help himself since he’d found out the Hunt had Jon. He was a wreck, running on fumes, far too exhausted to stay awake as the jeep drove over gravel, and completely unwilling to leave Jon alone for even a moment.

Later, Gerard told himself, after Jon was safe and sound, he’d take care of himself. He’d survived worse, Jon had not.

Blood trickled down Jon’s chin and Gerard wiped it away with the flat of his palm. He looked a mess, the area around his eyes crusted black and dark purple, contrasting with his creamy-white skin. If he didn’t currently have two fingers pressed to Jon’s jugular, he would’ve never guessed he was still alive.

“Can you go any faster?” he called towards the front seat, carefully moving Jon against his chest as he sat up straighter.

“Unless you want to crash into a tree, not really,” the man grumbled, then added something else Gerard didn’t understand.

“Fine, just keep driving.”

It was useless; they were already going pretty fast and an accident would’ve killed them both -- all three of them, most likely. Still, every single time Jon gasped for air, Gerard could just see that being his last breath and he wished he could do _more_ ; that he could fix the pain he’d caused Jon and the mess he’d made.

At least by the time they’d arrived somewhere that might’ve been called a village back home -- though far sparser than anything Gerard had seen -- the ambulance was already waiting for them. Thank the fucking stars for that. Gerard didn’t believe, not in a benevolent entity anyway, but he still found himself _hoping_ for its existence.

When a team of paramedics surrounded him, he had to remember that this was Jon's best chance of survival, that he was only letting go temporarily. It was hard to watch them gently move Jon to a stretcher, harder still when they hooked him up to a number of different machines. Against the white medical background, mask covering his face and the only hint of colour the blood staining his clothes, Jon reminded Gerard of a ghost. Dead already.

“Are you coming? You look like you need it too, what even happened to you guys?” a woman asked him. There was a hand on the small of his back, guiding him towards the ambulance’s open doors. “What happened to him?” She walked next to him, gesturing in Jon's direction.

“Deer,” was all Gerard said.

“Haven't seen a deer ever do that to anyone's face.”

Gerard shrugged. He could recount a tale of finding Jon in the deep woods, half frozen, and of dragging him back to civilisation, later.

There was barely any space left in the ambulance and he rode in silence for most of it, sat against the wall.

Thankfully, none of them asked too many questions, moving around him and occasionally talking between themselves, and all throughout Gerard’s eyes never left Jon. Gaze unflinching, even when someone helped him out of his coat and scissors snipped next to his face. His shirt was a mess, and so was the debris-caked gauze he'd wrapped his shoulder with.

He’d almost forgotten about it.

“These burns look old.” the woman commented at one point. It wasn't exactly a conversation starter and Gerard hummed something noncommittal in return. “I’ve never seen anyone tattoo over burns, it must’ve hurt.”

If she noticed his unwillingness to speak, she didn't let it stop her, fingers moving over his shoulder. “Did you bandage this wound yourself? It's not a bad job but it's too tight, any longer and it would've started to embed itself in your skin. You can see that ends are already halfway there.”

He let the sound of beeping drown out everything else and it wasn't until she reached for his hand that he noticed she'd been waiting for his answer. Any other time and he would have been at least a little self-conscious, his chest bare and scarred all over. Now? Jon was more important than his own feelings.

“I didn't have time to look it over,” he replied. It wasn't even a lie and he bit back a hiss when she pulled at layers of old dressing to reveal pinkish flesh underneath.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “You're just lucky it doesn't look too bad. It seems like your body has started to heal already. I'll get it cleaned up for you.”

There was another stretch during which all Gerard saw or heard were the other two paramedics rushing around Jon, talking about things he just couldn't decipher, like it was some sort of code. He was less than a foot away and it might as well been a thousand miles for all the good he could do.

The woman followed his gaze, turning towards where Jon was laid, unmoving, then shook her head, sighing. “Is he your…?”

“Friend.”

Gerard’s eyes darted up towards her face. Her name badge read _Amy_ and she looked… sad, for him? Sounded about right, he thought.

“Your friend is not in a very good condition. We're trying to keep him stable but right now it's hard to tell what the prognosis is,” Amy said. “He seems to be breathing on his own, so that’s something.”

 _But he might not make it, we don’t know_ , she didn't have to say that, Gerard heard it clearly enough in his own head -- it wasn’t something he needed a _power_ to do, it wasn’t Beholding or any of the others.

“I know,” he exhaled, wishing he could reach to stroke Jon's hand again.

By the time they arrived to the hospital and the sirens finally died down, Amy had patched his shoulder and given him some sort of antibiotic shot that should help prevent infection -- those were _her_ words. Gerard hadn't paid attention to anything since Jon had been wheeled away, straight into the emergency area.

There was a doctor waiting for him, some policemen -- though he'd expected them sooner -- who made him go through a handful of questions a dozen of times, and finally, a noisy ward from which he discharged in himself as soon as he'd gotten some rest.

Part of him was almost disgusted to keep repeating his terrible alias every time someone asked who he was and what he _was doing_ while trying to navigate the senseless hospital halls. _Tobias Mann_ didn’t even sound like a real name, which Gerard thought was just fine.

 _Medically induced coma_ was the last thing he'd wanted to hear when he finally got through to the ICU where Jon was being kept.

“He's my friend, I told you already.” Gerard knew he looked like shit, too much hair, slouching forward, hospital gown askew, tattoos and burns both visible, but he didn't think it gave the attending nurse the right to look at him like some sort of sub-human ghoul.

“I’m sorry sir, I can’t release any more information to you at this point.”

“I brought him here, if he dies-” He swallowed the lump in his throat.  “...I need to know. You don’t understand. If he dies here, I need to know.”

“Your friend -- Jonathan Sims -- is in critical condition. Since you’re not family or in any of the paperwork, there not much I can do. With all due respect, it’s not possible for you to visit him now,” the man said, looked down at a screen and continued. “Is there something else you needed?”

He could See. He could look and potentially risk unshrouding himself to the Beholding. Or he could keep arguing.

“What I need is for you to stop being…” His eyes narrowed. “I just need to know how he is. I know it’s not good but if he’s about to… go, he wouldn’t want to be alone. I found him, I’m not going to just leave him now.”

The nurse gave him an appraising look and Gerard wished he could just Know what the man was looking for, or how to simply bypass him. His hands trembled on his hips and he shook his head for what felt like the tenth time in a row.

He was so fucking tired. “ _Please.”_

That seemed to get through the nurse, if only a little. “If you leave your contact here, I can… possibly let you know if anything changes.”

Gerard still couldn’t stop himself from shooting the man a dirty glare. “Here,” he said, slamming a black satchel he’d salvaged from his backpack before… all the shit went down and he had to run. Its contents spilled over the counter: satellite phone, cards, keys-- mostly random nonsense.

He held the phone out. “Take the number. If something happens…” _This is all my fault._ It wasn’t -- not entirely, but it might as well be for all the good he’d done.

“You’ll be contacted,” the nurse offered with a fake-sweet smile on his lips and Gerard knew they were done -- there was nothing else to say. “Now, is there anything else you need, Mr Mann?”

Gerard didn’t bother sticking around for long enough to hear the part where he was told to leave. His entire body was slick with sweat, muscles throbbing hotly and -- from the way people seemed to avoid him -- he knew that Sam’s smell hadn’t gone away yet. It followed him and made parting through the crowd easy.

Unlike his shirt and his trousers, his jacket had survived the ordeal and when he finally stepped out of the hospital wearing nothing but a flimsy hospital gown, he was glad for its protection from the chilly autumn wind. It was colder than he remembered being a couple hours earlier, though he really hadn’t had time to think about the weather back then.

“Well, you’re not going anywhere, Gerard Keay, so better get used to it,” he told himself as he walked towards one of the taxis stationed around the hospital car park.

He’d need new clothes, new hair dye and a holy bunch of other necessities, of course, but that was a task for future-him. The mostly-alive him that would take over after he had a long shower and an equally long nap; after he found somewhere he could lie low in for a while.

“Motel?”

Gerard didn’t really listen to the driver, he nodded every now and then and finally they arrived somewhere that was either a pretty damn good motel, or a shitty hotel. He wasn’t sure which. Not until he got to the reception area and he noticed the room prices _._

That was definitely more than he should be paying for a month’s worth of nights, and instead of doing the logical thing and leaving; of finding somewhere to go to, Gerard had swiped his credit card and tried not to think about it too much.

It included breakfast and Gerard couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d had something to eat besides nasty trail rations, so that was something. And the shower had enough water pressure that it felt nice, teetering between pain as pleasure as it poured over his skin, scalding hot.

His fingers traced over near-invisible tattoos that snaked down the line of his hips, dipping into the inside of his thighs before vanishing altogether. There was nothing supernatural about these; nothing but vanity and the way it felt good when he stroked them, and Gerard still didn't regret getting them.

The many cuts on his torso and arms stung and he was fairly sure he wasn't meant to get his shoulder wet. None of it stopped him from from scrubbing hard enough that some of the smaller wounds reopened and bloody water swirled at his feet.

Gerard looked down at himself, closed his eyes and saw Jon. Sighing, he touched the Beholding tattoos on his knuckles. He didn't need to look to feel their raised surface against his fingertips.

“I'm not leaving,” he said, out loud.

His hair was a mess and he didn't even attempt to detangle the many knots in it. That was another task for post-nap him, when he had the time and patience and a comb he could trust to do the job.

He didn't even bother to dry himself properly, patting the dampness between his legs and throwing a towel on his head before walking back in the room.

When he finally collapsed on a comfortably stiff mattress, the rotting monster stench hadn't entirely dissipated, but it was as close enough as it was going to get, and it was better than it had been so Gerard counted it as some sort of victory.

He didn't check the time, it didn't matter. Night, day, whatever, he needed this sleep.

For the past couple weeks, his routine had consisted of drifting for maybe an hour or two at a time before getting back up to resume his search for Jon. He hadn’t had the energy to tuck himself in his sleeping bag most days. Now that he could finally allow himself a moment to relax; now that Jon’s fate was entirely out of his hands, he just couldn’t stop _thinking it over._

“Fuck.” Gerard rolled on his back, arms stretched above him. “I’m getting too old for this shit. Jon’s going to be fine; you’ve done all you could. Drop it already.”

Gerard pulled the quilt over himself. He couldn’t really curl up, but he leaned on his good side and focused on his breathing, the way he’d done all those decades ago, when the Powers had first caught up to him -- like he’d done after his _death._

It wasn’t as immediate as he’d hoped -- not like he was falling asleep on Jon’s lap again. It felt like hours until his thoughts finally ebbed away and he straddled that line between awareness and… not

When Gerard finally dropped off, there were no dreams waiting for him on the other side.  


\---  


The next couple of days passed in a blur of activity. Gerard had no reason to stay put when the Hunt was a major threat in the area and… it kept him distracted. There was no news about Jon’s condition just yet. He’d checked -- he’d made it to the hospital twice already, only to be told the exact same thing: he was not allowed access to the information.

Jon was alive, that was good enough. It had to be.

Occasionally, Gerard caught himself trying to See Jon, and had to bite back the frustration that came with knowing just how terrible of an idea that was. There was nothing good to be gained from making himself vulnerable; nothing that he wouldn’t achieve by just waiting a little longer.

So he hunted -- a different sort of hunt; one that left behind the weapons and the forest and  involved browsing too many bookstores and libraries, sorting through stacks of bullshit in the hopes he’d find the one kind of book he was looking for.

And while there were no Leitners in Grande Prairie, the marked -- mostly by the Hunt -- were numerous enough that Gerard spent the majority of a week warning them, with some degree of success.

He didn’t blame them, really. After a couple of days and a couple of meals in him, he was looking a little better; a little less like death incarnate wearing too much black, and more like a real person. His hair had been dyed and brushed through. He’d shaved and bought new clothes and finished setting up a little research station in his motel room.

But who wanted to believe there was a very literal monster coming for them?

If Gerard let their reactions bother him, it was only because he had to focus on something other than Jon and the guilt that insisted on tainting every waking single moment. He liked Jon a hell of a lot more than he liked most people -- but he wasn’t about to let his fucking emotions get in the way of a job he had taken upon himself over ten years earlier.

He had been walking down what would’ve been a nice park if it hadn’t been overrun by nature. A frozen metal fence was kept upright by… Gerard had no idea, its sheer force of will? It swung slightly in the breeze and despite his heavy duty boots, he almost slipped on a patch of ice and stabbed himself with a rusty pole.

The couple he was following were both marked by the Darkness. It wasn’t exactly the way he preferred doing things, chasing people, and certainly not this close to nightfall. But it had to be done if they were to have any chance of survival.

Gerard didn’t need to look at their faces to know they were scared of him. He didn’t feel it or Know it, but he saw it clearly enough in their body language; in the way they cringed away when stepped closer.

Well, he had no interest in prolonging this any longer than it had to be.

“Just keep out of the dark, okay? If a bulb goes, don’t be complete idiots and head into it, just run as far as you can,” he said. “Preferably somewhere that’s not as dark.”

The pair stared at him and he gave them a wry smile. “Be careful.” Maybe terrified wasn’t really the best word to describe their expressions. Perplexed? Gerard could only hope they wouldn’t ignore his advice and serve as another tasty snack for the Powers.

There wasn’t much more he could do, and as soon as they turned away -- albeit not without a very soft and incredibly polite ‘thank you’ -- Gerard did the same. He had no other reasons to be out so late and hadn’t exactly planned on sticking around the empty park.

Not until his cellphone rang, anyway.

Gerard had at least two dozen contacts all around the globe -- allies, mostly -- but there was only one person he hoped was calling him, and he didn’t even know their name.

Inhaling, his eyes flickered upwards and he noticed a flurry of tiny specs washing across the sky as a sudden wind buffeted him. Gerard couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen snow -- a proper snowstorm. It was an amazing sight to behold: snowflakes tinged pink and red, reflecting all the colours of the sunset like tiny prisms of light.

“Yes?” he asked, hoping that his voice didn’t betray the deep-rooted _fear_ welling in him.

“Your friend, Jonathan Sims, he’s...”

Gerard didn't reply. He didn't have to.

By the time he arrived back at his motel room, his legs burned from the effort of running the entire way. At least it negated the freezing cold. He managed to narrowly avoid the traffic and clusters of people who were, for some reason, still around despite the weather changing.

He was almost ready to leave again when the sound of his ringtone startled him out of trying to find a spare set of keys -- just in case.

“Did something else happen?” He was breathless, cellphone wedged between his ear and his shoulder as he searched the room.

“Oh, hello Mister Keay, or should I say, Mister Mann? Either way, I've been meaning to speak with you for a while now.”

Gerard’s entire body straightened, he felt a twinge in the base of his neck and a sudden pressure enter his skull.

“Elias Bouchard,” Gerard said. “How did you get this number?”

“I have my ways, as you well know,” Elias replied. His voice was smooth, almost erotically so, if Gerard were at all inclined to admit it.

“It was that fucking nurse wasn't it?” he gritted his teeth, hissing. The mattress sunk under his weight as he sat down for the sake of not pacing the room.

“Now, that's not necessary. I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.”

The longer Elias spoke, the harder Gerard’s head throbbed, that insidious presence trying to sneak into him. “You obviously want something or you wouldn't bother. What's is it?”

Elias’ words crackled through the connection, slightly distorted as if ran by a modulator. “Have you ever heard of a man known as Jared Hopworth?”

“Yes.”

“According to some of my most recent insights, he has landed in the Grand Prairie Airport and is in the area. The reasons for this are, of course, unknown. Even _I_ can't predict the Butcher's madness, although I am quite sure who he'll target,” Elias said. Gerard wasn’t entirely sure, but he’d been around Elias long enough to know he sounded… displeased. “And the Archivist is currently too weak to be of much use. No. I would like you to keep them safe.”

Gerard stifled a groan. “Why would I do that?” He didn't point out that he would've protected Jon without being asked.

“Regarding the contract you signed upon your arrival at the institute, Mr Keay, did you-”

“Fuck you, I'm done with that, and with you.“

Gerard’s hand clawed at the bedsheets, curling so tightly that his fingers hurt.

“Did you think it ended upon your death?”

No, of course not. What else could he have thought? “Should I?” he spat.

“Things are moving far quicker than you or Jon could understand and I'm already stretched thin trying to keep him from harm.”

“You mean the harm you knew was coming to him?” Gerard couldn't keep the anger from his tone, clipped short. “Or the harm you intentionally caused by giving him to the Hunt?”

Elias clicked his tongue and for one second, Gerard’s vision went blurry, black and red in the corners of his eyes as the Beholding’s immense power tried to force itself between gaps in his shroud; tried to penetrate deeper into his mind. It shouldn't have been possible and Gerard slumped back, only aware he hadn't dropped the phone when Elias spoke again.

“There is much you don't understand. You can pretend you do, Mister Keay, but would you say an ant understands you? Would you expect it to? No matter. Jon is in danger and I expect you'll keep him safe.”

“I already am,” Gerard wheezed, failing to keep his voice under control. “What do you think I’ve been doing while you looked the other way? Without me he’d be dead.”

“If I recall it correctly, you are the one who caused him to almost die in the first place. Perhaps if you’d been content with watching instead of intervening, that wouldn’t have happened. Have you forgotten all you’ve learned?”

Gerard knew what Elias was trying to do. Another minute and he might’ve just fallen for it entirely. Anger and guilt fuelled his reactions -- nearly too riled up to resist -- but when he looked down at the open eye tattoos on his clenched fingers, the pressure in his head eased a little.

“You’re… not going to get… in that easily,” he said, gasping for breath.

“Regardless, you will protect Jon and you will ensure that the Archivist is not lost, if it comes to that.”

Gerard didn’t have to read between the lines, Elias’ intent was clear: if Jon didn’t make it, there would be a new Head Archivist and it would be _him_. His skin crawled at the thought and it was only out of a keen self-preservation instinct that he didn’t hang up on Elias right there and then.

“I would never-”

“I’m not sure you understand the situation, Mister Keay. You don’t have a choice. The Stranger grows stronger with each passing day and without an Archivist, everything- everyone you have ever cared for, will perish. That is, unless you cooperate and keep Jon safe.”

Inky black lines twined over too-pink skin, eyes staring, open wide up at him. Gerard had designed the tattoos himself, he knew what they’d do to him, the kind of latent power in each brushstroke. It helped, to remind himself of their existence again and again.

“I’ll keep Jon safe, he won’t die,” Gerard replied after a moment of static-y silence. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? So fuck off already.”

“You won’t be able to counter Jared directly.” It didn’t sound like Elias was talking to him but to the idea of him. His tone was placating and smug. “And any… help I might be able to divert to you would take too long to arrive.”

“Can’t do that, can we, send help for Jon?”

Elias ignored him. “Your alias will be allowed in the ward Jon is currently in, and you should find a tape recorder and a credit card at the hotel Jon was previously staying at. Just give the receptionist your name.”

Gerard didn’t react. His tongue was a dead weight in his mouth and his heart sped erratically in his chest.

“Goodbye, Mister Keay. Don’t forget this.”

Even after the phone call ended, the presence in his mind didn’t withdraw -- not for another minute; not until Gerard had gone through the room and flipped every single picture -- shredded every single leaflet containing a face; anything with eyes.

“Sloppy,” he muttered, pulling on his hair with both hands, hard enough that the pain drowned out every other emotion.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in time for the finale tonight!

The first thing Jon Knew as his consciousness slowly waned back into existence, was that he was lying, comatose, in a hospital bed. He couldn’t see, and he couldn’t _feel_ or hear anything, of course. In fact, the Archivist -- and those dim flickers of life outside himself -- were the only way he could tell he wasn’t dead or trapped in a dream of the endless void.

His thoughts were sluggish, peeking through layers of utter nothingness and timeless moments of which Jon was only aware when he realised he’d been trying to remember something and suddenly he drifted again. Unaware, unfeeling, cocooned in a lovely blanket that reminded him of… images and feelings he couldn’t really grasp yet.

Memory didn’t come easily. Not at first. Not until later, Jon thought that was it; that he’d lacked time, but then he lost track of that idea, too. He didn’t know how long he’d been inside his own mind, only that it was a time. Some time. Maybe a very long time. Maybe not.

He did recover, eventually. Not his senses -- none of those -- but the ability to string together a coherent thought, and to remember his last moments before a cocktail of drugs had forced him into this coma.

It wasn’t scary. When Jon had imagined it -- being trapped within his own mind, only a monster for company -- he’d always seen it with a petrifying sort of terror; the lenses of another near-death experience colouring his view. Now… well, he didn’t feel that way. He was free in a way, and he was far from scared.

“Finally,” the Archivist purred from all around him. Jon couldn’t hear it, but it reminded him of a very loud, distorted cat.

He couldn’t speak, either; they were both trapped within the confines of his brain. “Archivist, yes. It is about time for proper introductions. It seems a bit rude to have taken up residence in my head without discussing the rent," Jon said. He wasn’t sure where the sudden bite of sarcasm came from. Perhaps the setting. “Am I ever getting a deposit back for all the damage you caused?”

The Archivist wasn’t anywhere, and neither was Jon. He wasn’t something physical, and Jon thought of little appendages, the end of which were covered in clusters of small, round eyeballs. They would’ve stared in his direction if he had a physical form.

“Probably not, you will have to take that up with Elias,” it smiled pleasantly. “Although if you feel it’s an unfair arrangement, perhaps this time would be better spent conversing than in silence.”

Jon couldn’t really disagree. “How long have you even been here? Since I started work in the archives? The moment Gertrude died? When I first joined the Institute?"

The Archivist didn’t shrug. “You have always had the seed of power inside of you, but I only began to develop after your first encounter with him,” it said.

“Seed? That’s… a vaguely disturbing image.”

“The power to become me was planted the moment you met one of us,” it continued. “Although it was only recently it… blossomed, you could say.”

Jon didn’t want to know what that meant -- he didn’t want to admit that what Elias had planned for him had worked.

“It’s still disturbing. And now I get to not only feel you knocking things around inside my head, but to hear you as well.” He crossed his arms -- the impression of arms -- against his chest. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“You’re welcome,” the Archivist said and Jon rolled his… well, not his eyes -- he was inside his own head -- at the monster. “The only reason we can communicate is because you’ve rejected me.”

“I’m not a monster.”

“And that, is where you’re wrong, Jonathan Sims. You may not be a monster, but you certainly aren’t human anymore. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed it yet? What you’ve been doing these past months, compelling humans to tell you what you want to know, are those not the actions of a monster?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Jon wanted to snarl, but one movement of the Archivist within his mind, and felt his own presence grow smaller. “You’re the Archivist. Aren’t you supposed to know?”

An endless wall of eyes, pressing in on him, squeezing the... not life, the _fight_ out him. It wasn’t painful, but Jon struggled with it nonetheless.

“You are a monster. Is that what you would like to hear? You’ve done things no human could hope to; Known things no other could have, save for those serving our Master. Yes, you are a monster indeed.”

If Jon had been conscious of his breathing patterns, he would’ve gasped. It was a slap to his face. He was a monster. He’d been tortured, almost died several times, and it had really changed nothing. He was still the monster he’d never wanted to be.

Then he tried to laugh. It wasn’t really successful, more of a flailing of his awareness, brighter and then dimmer before settling back into… whatever it had been before.

All throughout, the Archivist didn’t react.

“Okay, okay. I’m… I’m a monster. I’m still not -- you. I’m the Archivist. But so are you.”

“Correct. The Archivist is not a unique position, it has existed before and it will continue to exist after you. I'm the Archivist and a part of your unconscious, the part that has allowed you to survive the Hunt, the part that you tried to sever from yourself,” it replied.

“I… see.” Jon wasn’t some sort of flowering plant -- he didn’t see himself ripple and grow, because he couldn’t have. The Archivist hadn’t changed -- _Jon_ had -- he was the monster within the monster, and that... It reminded him of something else… “And that dream… vision, with Elias. He said you could take over me?”

“Your conscious mind could be erased, overridden, although that would be quite troublesome.”

Jon tried to imagine himself as an empty husk serving the Archivist. He tried to imagine his body held together by threads of Beholding, his mind experiencing only shades of emotion he had once Known. He tried to see his whole self being limited to his knowledge. He couldn't. He saw pupils and... thorns?

“Which is why I'm still here and you're still there. I suppose that makes sense,” Jon admitted. ”It's very different… talking like this. I know we're not _talking_ -”

It interrupted him, curling around Jon, its tendrils twining idly around his awareness. “The pain kept you from being able to communicate effectively. Even now, your consciousness is a speck of dust compared to your waking mind.”

“Is that why I… am just telling you this? You’re not Knowing me, I’m… not compelling myself- I’m-”

“You have said it already,” the Archivist confirmed. “You’re talking to a part of yourself, inside your own mind.” It took the form of a blanket, settling on his... on the absence of his shoulders. Its weight was far from comforting.

“Right,” Jon said. He found himself staring at the emptiness where his hands should’ve been. “Right… And how long have we been trapped here?”

Trapped -- that didn’t feel right. He didn’t feel trapped. He would’ve hopped out already; reached out to the twinkling presences around him, if it weren’t for Gerard’s warning and the Archivist’s words.

“One week, give or take a couple hours. Although it was only more recently - the attributes of human time escape me - that you have become aware of your own condition. It has been-” It flickered away, Jon felt himself stretched thinner, somehow. “Only a few minutes since our conversation has begun.”

Minutes? That couldn’t be right. Then again, the Archivist had no reason to lie and Jon really had no frame of reference. He would’ve checked for himself, but the thought of getting trapped outside himself… unable to return. He shivered.

“And you’ve been in here, listening out the whole time,” he said. Jon was fairly sure he shouldn’t feel as glad or as relieved that he hadn’t been entirely helpless.

He was also fairly sure he shouldn’t be able to feel the Archivist’s pale mimicry of pleasure. It coated him like… honey, or liquid amber, crystallizing invisibly around him. It cut through his thoughts -- inside him -- and there was no escape from the soft giddiness that rolled in its wake.

“Yes.” It was pleased, either with itself or Jon. “That is what I do. I kept your guard up while you slumbered.”

“Without you, none of this would’ve happened to me, remember?” Jon wanted to be angry and he failed, the emotion just fading away from his grasp. “I’d just be a normal archivist in a normal archive somewhere. I wouldn’t have to worry about… this,” he grumbled.

“Any other of the domains would have been very glad to take you instead.”

Jon couldn’t not listen, there was no way to stop the Archivist from reaching to him.

Though the worst part wasn’t the truth in the Archivist’s words; the worst was, none of it really worried him. At least he wasn’t a flesh hive or a living mannequin or an everburning torch for the Lightless Flame.  

“You are full of potential. Even now, they struggle with one another for dominion over you,” it said. “That would not have changed, even if I had never come to exist within you.”

“You make it sound like an incredibly stupid plan then, for him to give me to the Hunt.” Like before, instead of annoyed, Jon was perplexed, curious. Mostly, he just felt a good kind of grogginess settle where his chest should’ve been, though whether that was that the Archivist’s influence or something else, he didn’t know. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing I was not doing when you first awoke.” It brushed Jon, squeezing him. Was that an attempt at reassurance? “Elias saw you as as you should have been the moment you stepped into the Institute. The Hunt, whilst employing distasteful methods, has served as a fine catalyst for your progress where the others have failed.”

So, maybe that funny fluttering in his belly wasn’t the Archivist after all -- at that, Jon realised he was actually aware of his stomach; of its placement and the rivulet of nausea that rushed through him.

“Distasteful is an understa-” He stopped when a clap of thunder rung above him, so loud it was agonizing to listen to. “What is-”

“It seems you are waking up,” the Archivist said. It was nearly still, wisps of its presence idly stroking across Jon’s mind. It was definitely trying to soothe his pain, wasn’t it?

Jon would’ve chuckled -- he’d never considered appreciating the Archivist’s presence before -- but as the residual pain left in his body grew bolder and more blindingly obvious, he found it hard to just think. Talking with the Archivist was impossible, but then again, they hadn’t been really talking.

“It- it hurts so much… I can’t,” Jon wanted to cry out. “I’m not ready to wake up! It’s- it’s too sudden, fuck.”

It was a complete reversal from the way he’d just spent the past… however long. He was aware of every bone in his body, every inch of skin; of the tube reaching deep into his lungs, the pressure on the back of his neck and the way it held his head every so slightly upright.

“You have to, you will start to atrophy otherwise and you are too vulnerable like this,” he heard the Archivist say, wrapped in him and fading rapidly into the background. “You will heal, but only if you survive this.”

“I’m in the Hospital, I have to be in the hospital,” Jon thought, if only because his mouth was stiff and unmoving, his lips numb. “Am I still not safe?”

Did he even need an answer to that?

“You may have escaped the Hunt, but others are still on your trail. Unless you recover quickly you may find yourself prey to them.” The Archivist was almost entirely inaudible, more of a brush of an idea -- feelings rather than their concrete meaning.

It was gone after that and Jon was, well, he wasn't alone, not entirely.

The Archivist still dwelled deep within his mind and around all him, several distinct voices bubbled up, little bursts of life around him. Individually, none made much sense and Jon had trouble tracking any of them to follow the conversation.

Over them, through the hum of machinery and the pain, Jon noticed the beeping -- it threw him back to all these years ago, when he'd landed in the hospital after being saved by Gerard. The more he heard, the louder and more insistent the sound became, faster and faster and faster as he tried to focus on blocking it out.

“He's awake!” someone called out, sharp enough that it stood out against the noise. “He's gonna seize again!

There was a pause, followed by shrill white noise. “Quickly!”

Like being crushed alive, his chest tightened. The movement sucked all the air from his lungs in one sweep. In the distance, Jon was vaguely aware of his own heart beating off rhythm, slower than it had a moment earlier. He heard a long hiss, followed by an arching motion he couldn’t quite place.

And then… nothing. Again.

Well. Not nothing.

Having grown up on the coast, Jon was reminded of the sea and its salty breeze, though really, it was nothing like floating, nor drowning, or even being pulled anywhere. He walked barefoot on bright, swiftly moving sand, feeling it prickle at his toes, twisting and turning. Its coarse surface scratching an itch he hadn’t known he’d felt.

For however long it took for the drugs to kick in, he _was_... and that’s all he could ever be. He didn’t fall back unconscious, didn’t sleep. He was and he walked, unaware, of the ocean’s end and the fact that wherever the foamy waves touched, they left no trail, there was no water or salt or sky or wind -- there was nothing.

Of course, none of it was accurate.

He wasn’t back in Bournemouth. He wasn’t anywhere: not inside his head, not with the Archivist, or anyone else. He was not Jon. He just _was_.

Then he was somewhere else, and he became Jon again.  


\---  


_This time, there’s no desk, no creeping darkness and no Archivist looming in Jon’s shadow._

_He's back home -- his childhood home, one floor, barely big enough for the three of them -- and there's a man at the door. Jon's not old enough to be trusted alone but his parents are gone. He knows he shouldn't open the door. But the knock comes again and curiosity grips him and he goes. Yes there is a man, a stranger at the door. His face looks ageless, skin smooth, his hair dark and peppered with white, like salt flakes._

_He takes Jon's hand._

_Jon isn't home anymore, he's not young, he's older then and with every step he feels glass pierce the bottom of his feet. He walks down the stretching length of Shell Bay and Elias walks beside him._

_“You’re almost ready,” Elias says. “And you did make it to the hospital after all. Although I suppose I you’re not really the one to thank for that. It’s a good thing I Saw to take precautions.” He’s staring straight ahead, towards a curve in the path that makes it impossible to see past a blue ocean reflecting equally blue skies._

_“You mean Gerard?” Jon asks. “Is he alright?”_

_“Why does it matter to you, Jon? He was using you the same way you’ve used him.”_

_Jon isn’t entirely sure the assumption is correct, but the question is an interesting one. Why does it matter? Why does Gerard matter?_

_Aside from having saved his life more than once, Jon doesn’t know. Not at first. Not until he’s reminded of his dream of Gerard’s death and of that scene -- Gerard’s body, bloody and lifeless on the snow._

_“Because…” He stops, then starts again. “It matters. It just does,” he tells Elias, who shrugs. Jon has never seen Elias just… shrug. It’s strange, almost cognitive dissonance levels of strange._

_“Gerard Keay, like his mother, has had his uses, and he might, or not, have a few left in the future still, but after that, I suppose that depends on you. And he isn’t made of the stuff you are,” Elias says. “You’d be better off letting go of him.”_

_Jon doesn’t know what to make of that. He gets the clear impression he’s trying to get on his good side -- that after everything he’s done, this is Elias’ way of winning him over. And he laughs, because it’s so fucking ridiculous._

_“You’re being nice… I don’t really understand,” Jon pauses for a few seconds, they sidestep a rock in the pier. “Do you really think I’m just going to forgive and forget everything you’d done to me?”_

_It’s Elias turn to chuckle, the sound sends shivers running up and down Jon’s spine. “There is no benefit to your further torment. I'm not needlessly cruel, Jon.”_

_“Only when it serves you.”_

_The path is almost gone, though Jon can’t tell if the rest of the pier has been swallowed by the sea or if it’s simply getting narrower the closer they get to the end. The sun is shining so brightly; so harsh and hot, that everything else falls away under its glare._

_“You make it sound like I’ve done it simply because it amuses me,” Elias says._

_“No, I suppose fun-loving isn’t exactly how I’d describe you either.”_

_Elias hums a little, as if deep in thought. Job hadn't noticed his usually crisp black suit is crumpled and the sleeves of both his jacket and his trousers have been rolled up to reveal pale, creamy skin underneath._

_The walk in silence for a little bit after that. They're not alone, though it takes Jon a while longer to realise it. There are -- he thinks, silhouettes but that's not really the truth -- human shaped… memories. That's what they look like: imprints, abandoned by the people who made them._

_“What do you see?” Elias asks him._

_Jon sees a couple sat at the end of the pier, both are translucent, their movements sluggish. He sees a fisherman check his bait and chuck something into a bucket. He sees… A hundred presences overlapping each other, all moving and talking at once._

_It stops._

_“Well?”_

_“I-” He's paralysed, but it's not fear that holds him still. “We're here. You've actually brought me here. This isn't… we're not inside my mind at all, are we? How is that possible?”_

_“We are not in Bournemouth.” If Elias is taking any pleasure in Jon's apprehension, he doesn't show it. “Not physically at least. But yes, you're correct, what you're seeing is what has taken place in the past couple days. Reflections of Seeing, I'd say.”_

_“How can you-” Jon is silenced by a wave of Elias hand._

_“You haven't answered my question yet, Jon.”_

_Jon looks out again. The couple are talking to each other, gazes interlocked. Behind them, a child lies on the warm stone slabs. A fish is spasming in the fisherman's bucket. There's not enough water and it'll soon suffocate._

_“People,” Jon finally says. “Lives. That's what I'm Seeing.”_

_“Now look closer.”_

_The scene changes. This is Elias doing, Jon knows that. The people are still in the exact same place as before, so is the ocean, so is the sky. It's not obvious but Jon feels it so deep inside of himself that he couldn't not notice. Instead of fluid, instead of rippling through reality, the memories are wooden, hard, unwieldy. They're plastic._

_The Stranger's touch._

_Elias nods and there's a knowing expression on his face, lips upturned slightly. He doesn’t open his mouth to speak and Jon understands his intent all the same. Unless he returns, unless he takes the responsibility for the powers he has developed, there won’t be anything to come back to- nothing alive, anyway._

_Everything, everyone, everywhere you’ve ever loved will turn to… this, Elias doesn’t say, he doesn’t have to._

_At least Elias isn’t trying to… woo him again, Jon thinks. Threats are closer to what he perceives as Elias’ style. Threats and murder and some things that are worse than both._

_“Oh, it’s not a threat, Jon,” Elias replies._

_At that, Jon turns back from the mechanical couple and the children and the gape-mouthed, button-eyed fish, scales glistening iridescent and fake, too stiff for it to move properly. Elias is facing away, staring out at the spot in the horizon where the sky merges with the ocean._

_“Just stay out of my mind.” Jon wants to be angry, but what comes out is as resigned as he feels. He doesn’t hate himself for it, but it’s close._

_He sees Elias tilt his head slightly, sees the crease on his forehead and the line on his cheeks when he smiles._

_“I’ll see you soon, Jon.”_  


\---  


“Blink your eyes, once for yes, twice for no, can you do that?”

At first, he didn’t understand. It took him another three repetitions of that same question for Jon to realise he was actually awake and that there was someone actually trying to talk to him. He had just been roused from a medically induced sleep, and grogginess tangled around his every thought.

Jon didn’t know if he had been strapped down or if there was something else, another injury that  kept him from moving any part of his body. All he knew was that nodding was out of the question, as was speaking, and the only way to interact with the... doctor or nurse -- he assumed -- was through the most useless of actions.

He blinked.

There was no way to express his frustration, even his brow muscles refused to cooperate and when Jon tried to narrow his eyes -- well, he couldn’t be sure it hadn’t worked, and someone did stroke his hand at that. Still, it hadn’t seemed like a meaningful gesture, that’s for sure.

“Good, good. It’s good to know you’re awake. I’m Dr Flansburgh, I’m part of the team that’s been taking care of you. You can hear me, yes?”

Jon blinked again, the irritation mounting in him.

His vision was as it’d been all through his time with the Hunt -- absolutely useless. Even with his eyes wide open, he saw nothing but darkness. Often enough it would be tinged through with hints of colour, barely clear enough for him to tell they had been there, let alone see as he’d done before. His sight had never been perfect, Jon was well acquainted with having to wear glasses from a young age, but this? He was... blind and he couldn’t swallow that down.

“Good,” Dr Flansburgh repeated. “ Do you remember what happened to you?”

Very slowly, in an attempt to convey his uncertainty, Jon blinked once and then again. His memories were riddled with large holes. Gerard had somehow brought him to the hospital, but how he'd done that or what had prompted him to rush was forgotten.

Dr Flansburgh sighed. He spoke from Jon’s left, his accent utterly foreign. “It's not unusual to experience some memory loss after a trauma and you seem to have seen your share or them Mr Sims. It should return to you quickly as you recover.” Something warm ran over his outer thigh, down towards his knee. “Can you feel this? The x-rays seemed to show no spinal damage, which is, given the level of your injuries, very lucky.”

Blink.

“Good,” the doctor said.The warmth moved lower, tickling Jon’s shin, and he added, “And this?”

Another single blink.

“It is far too early to tell for sure, but you should expect a full recovery. As for the rest of it…” Dr Flansburgh paused and Jon felt whatever had been touching him withdraw. “Well, according to your ‘friend’ Mr Mann, a deer wounded you, although he doesn't seem able to tell us what happened before then.”

A deer? Mr Mann? What? The words were familiar but he didn't know why.

Jon almost blinked several times in confusion as he tried trying to parse all this new information. His chest throbbed and a number of machines went off in the room, the growing noise adding to the stress of being completely immobile in a hospital bed, alone somewhere in Canada -- away from everything and everyone he’d ever known. And Gerard nowhere to be found.

The Archivist was a calming, if forceful, presence in his head. _Calm down,_ it told him.

The doctor did as well; different words, but the same intent. “It’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with not being ready to hear about your condition, Mr Sims. You should get some more rest, and I will come back later after you’ve woken up.”

No. _No_. Desperation streaked his every thought. That was not what Jon wanted -- or needed -- right now. None of it made much sense and he had to know what had really happened; he had to Know. He stared up in what he hoped was the direction of Dr Flansburgh’s face and blinked.

Blink, blink. Then again, blink, blink. I’m here, he thought, hoping it would work. I’m listening. If I could scream at you, I would.

Other voices joined the doctor’s and Jon wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t just going to drug him back to sleep until he felt his muscles relax and… it was like being too drunk, too intoxicated to tell he’d ever felt any other way. Still awake, still aware, holding on to the... just… what had he even been worrying about?

“Feeling better?” he heard the doctor ask.

Jon would have smiled if he could, lopsided and silly. He forgot to blink. His thoughts had been cleaved free from his mind, suspended by silky strings, utterly empty, devoid of any value. Like exhaling, the panic fell away, and after a while, so did everything else.

It wasn’t sleep and he didn’t dream or remember experiencing any visions. He didn’t feel anything either, nothing but a blissfully white haze, pain-free and so wonderful that he clung to it when it finally left him, too cold, sweaty and distraught.

Dr Flansburgh was there again. This time, Jon recognised the shape and colour of his individual presence before he’d opened his mouth. That wasn’t him -- not consciously -- but he didn’t resent the Archivist for it. It warned him to expect words where silence had reigned.

“Jonathan Sims, I see you’re awake again. How are you feeling today?” Dr Flansburgh asked. “I had to temporarily increase your dosage, since you almost had a panic attack yesterday.” That made sense. “I should also note that we removed your breathing tube shortly after your surgery. You might not feel like you can talk and your throat will be sore, but you should be able to. If not now, then soon.”

Surgery? Jon didn’t recall being told about it before. How much had he forgotten? Tentatively, his tongue brushed his bottom lip and his breath made a wheezy sound. Not only was he not sure he’d be able to speak, but part of him was hoped that if he just pretended, he might get to go back into that wonderful drug-induced high.

_I know it is nice, Jon, but you should know that you can't retreat forever._

“Don’t force yourself, you can communicate through blinking if that’s easier.” The tip of what felt like a gloved finger touched his eyelid and Jon almost yelped. “Aside from the goring wound you came to the hospital with, it seems you’ve broken your right ankle and fractured several other bones.”

He didn’t want to know. In fact, if he could pretend none of it had ever happened that would be for the best. Of course… as usual, he didn’t have a choice.

“You have all the signs of malnutrition and several other typical marks of abuse, but what concerns me the most are your eyes,” Dr Flansburgh said. “They seem to have been subject to chemical corneal burns, and to say that is uncommonly rare would be an understatement. There are treatments for it…” He paused. “But I have to admit I’ve never seen a case as bad as yours. Just what happened to you, Mr Sims?”

What a great and terrible question. What _had_ happened to him? Jon wasn’t sure where to even begin. The part where he’d been kidnapped by a supernatural entity or the part where he’d been made to run through the woods; when he’d almost frozen; petting a rotting semi-human-cannibal-whatever Sam was? Gerard? None of it felt real, not like now.

He struggled to keep his mouth open; to try and ignore the dry, ticklish ache in his throat. No words came out and shaking his head hurt almost as much -- Jon was only sure he’d done it because of the sudden pressure in his skull. If it wasn’t for his sight -- or lack thereof -- he would’ve assumed all of it had all been some sort of concussed nightmare.

And then… there was the matter of the Archivist. Maybe he’d broken; gone raving mad?

No.

“Clearly it was traumatic, you don't have to talk about it right now if you don't feel up to it, but it would help us treat you if we knew what had happened.”

Obviously.

Gerard had kept the pieces of him from falling apart. Where was he now? Jon tried to think -- it was like wading through mushy peas -- his thoughts falling apart quicker than he could string them together.

“Deer-” Jon somehow managed to say; his voice was a wreck, raspy and far too low. Its vibrations were what he heard, echoing in his head.

“Yes, that's what Mr Mann told us when he brought you in; that you'd been attacked by a deer, although that doesn’t coincide exactly with your injuries.” Not all of them, Jon heard where the doctor dropped off.

Gerard would have never have mentioned the creatures, but he couldn't imagine having been left behind by the man only for someone else -- for this Mr Mann to bring him in. Not unless he had been somehow unable to carry Jon… or he had had to escape.

All Jon wanted to do was to sleep the pain away, and he would have never forgive himself if he did. “W-where’s… G-Gerard?” he croaked.

“Gerard?” Dr Flanburgh said. There was a shuffling, a file being looked through, maybe? “There has been no one by that name admitted since your arrival, although the wildlife officers are still combing through the area, so it’s possible they’ve missed him.”

Jon felt his ice slip in his veins, chilling him to the bone. Gerard dead? Not possible, not really. Just gone? He’d promised Jon he wouldn’t leave, hadn’t he? A shiver ran through his whole body, from the tip of his toes up to the top of his head.

“Oh, there was of course Mr Mann, I didn’t quite catch his first name.”

Breath quickening, Jon tried to speak… faster, forcing his words in spite of the pain. “Dark h-hair… long…tatt-” He hissed, remembering that Gerard’s tattoos wouldn’t be visible if he kept the gloves. “C-coat?” It was the tiniest most pathetic whimper Jon had ever heard.

“Oh, that does sound like the Mr Mann I remember seeing, the one who called the ambulance. He has- actually, one moment. It seems he has been cleared to visit you. In fact- huh, I don’t remember this…”

Footsteps and a hushed conversation followed. It was just quiet enough that Jon couldn’t understand any of it. Jon lost track of Dr Flansburgh for a while after that. It wasn’t until someone gently touched the top of his hand that he snapped back into awareness.

“I’m sorry about that, Jonathan. It seems Mr Mann has been cleared to visit you after all. You've been in such a fragile state that visitor access was restricted, but I suppose you are recovered enough to have visitors, so long as you keep it short. You still need to rest and heal. Would you like us to inform Mr Mann you’ve woken up?”

“P-please,” was all Jon managed to say, his voice was a whisper of a croak, broken but hopeful.

“Only a couple minutes,” the doctor warned. “But I’ll let him in.”

Either it was a much shorter time, between Dr Flansburgh leaving and ‘Mr Mann’s’ arrival or the anticipation had kept him from drifting off. Jon was acutely aware of every sound in the room, and when the door opened and a -- chair, most likely -- was moved closer to him, he followed the noise with his eyes.

“Jon…”

Jon exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding -- it hurt, though the pain was nothing to the sheer, relief that washed through him. “G-Gerard.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you,” Gerard tone was thick with what Jon could only assume was guilt. “And don’t talk, it’s fine, let me just-” Jon felt Gerard’s gloved palm slip over his, squeezing his fingers between his own. “Squeeze once for yes, twice for no? If you want to talk at all? I don’t mind if you go back to sleep. I won’t let go.”

Jon didn’t know how to react, the heat running up his forearm was a lovely thing and he squeezed Gerard’s hand once, a smile touching his lips. Yeah, okay, he could do that.

“Good, now rest Jon,” Gerard sighed, Jon remembered thinking he sounded tired, before his eyes drooped and he nodded off.

At some point, Jon came back to nothing but the near-silent hum of machines. The room was empty and his hands were cold. Although panicking wasn’t his dazed brain’s first reaction, a weight coiled in his stomach and Jon didn’t relax until he heard the door open.

“Oh, you’re awake?” Jon didn’t know how Gerard could tell, maybe he’d moved? “I just went to get something to drink while you slept. I hope I didn’t worry you.”

The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted lazily across the room, dark and bitter, the way Jon preferred it. If he hadn’t been -- rather literally -- bedridden, Jon would’ve asked for Gerard to get him some too.

Instead, Gerard’s fingers moved over his again and Jon held on to him like it was something he’d been deprived of for… a long time.

“Do you want to hear a story?” Gerard asked, and Jon felt Gerard’s fingertips stroke lines across his forehead.

It wasn’t a statement, he knew that well enough by now, but the Archivist still perked up inside of him, listening out for any shreds of information. Jon squeezed his hand, not for the story itself -- he didn’t mind it -- but for the sake of listening to Gerard’s voice, to the way his words flowed in that characteristic accent of his, one after the other, rising and falling; for the way he nuzzled Jon’s face when it got interesting and spoke directly into his ear in those suspenseful moments.

Yes, Jon didn’t mind it at all.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon discovers something.

It was only almost a whole week and a half later that Jon was finally moved from the ICU and to a general care ward on the opposite side of the hospital. Nearly half a month in intensive care hadn’t been kind to him -- neither to his body or his mind -- and only Gerard’s constant presence kept him from giving up.

In the end, boredom turned out to be his worst enemy; it wasn’t like being kept in a cell by the Hunt… but even the constant pain hadn’t been this  _ boring _ . Life in a hospital bed was relentlessly dull and honestly, not very conducive to the development of his power.

Jon asked questions; there were more than enough nurses and doctors and random medicine students visiting this ‘man who really should’ve died’ to compel. Gerard had, one day, deposited his faithful tape recorder on his lap and well… he’d gotten statements. But they hadn’t been enough. None of it quenched the thirst that tickled the back of his throat. Not to mention, none really fuelled his research into the Stranger the the Unknowing.

The Archivist Knew what it needed, and it wasn’t… this.

Gerard, on the other hand…

It happened about three weeks later into his hospital stay. Jon was curled on his side, enjoying the fact that some of his chest bandages had been finally removed and he could stretch without a twinge of pain in his ribs. Another physical therapy session had gone by, and by the time he’d been wheeled back to the room, he was tired and cranky. Probably not the best state for a fulfilling nap, but Gerard was right there, and his voice soothed Jon’s emotions.

“I know you’re not going to be happy about this. I’m not, either,” Gerard was saying, squeezing Jon’s hand. It was a silly part of their routine -- the unspoken hand-holding -- but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jon hadn’t really been paying attention, not until the words sunk in and he shifted, opening his eyes to stare blankly in Gerard’s direction. He’d been trying some sort of new regenerative eye drops and well, it was still too early to tell. That’s what Dr Flansburgh replied with every time Jon had asked. It wasn’t the truth, though. Jon knew exactly what the man wasn’t telling him: that it wouldn’t work, the same way surgery hadn’t.

He felt Gerard tense against him, his fingers twitching. Jon could practically hear Gerard’s thoughts in his mind.  _ Don’t stare at me like that, I’m doing this for you.  _ “I have to leave you for a little while.”

“And I imagine you’re not going to tell me anything about it,” Jon replied dryly.

Gerard didn’t pull away -- he never did -- but Jon could tell he was uncomfortable. “If I could tell you, I would. I’m not about to risk your safety or your life again,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too long, only a day, two at most, and then I’ll be back here again.”

Jon tried to keep himself from snapping and failed.  _ It’s not Gerard’s fault, not really, _ he told himself. “Keeping things from me is doing the exact opposite! You’re not protecting me,” Jon hissed. “All you’re doing is making me worry that you’ll end up dead somewhere and I can’t even See you to Know.”

The outburst seemed to surprise them both. Jon yanked his arm back, the sudden motion making him dizzy. Gerard didn’t reach out to touch him, but Jon felt him scoot forward on the end of the hospital bed with shock or surprise or whatever it was that he was really feeling.

“Jon…” Gerard started, his voice much softer than it’d just been. For once, Jon wished he’d just stop with the charm and the cloying sweetness. “You know worrying you was never my intention. And I wish you’d be recovered enough that-” He stopped. “No, I really can’t tell you, not yet. Perhaps after I’ve returned you’ll have… a whole new statement of your own.”

Of course the Archivist had something to say about that. Jon ignored the sudden rush of euphoria and shook his head. “Just go, I’m not… going to compel you to tell me.” He scowled.

Besides, there had to be better things for him to do than worry about Gerard’s safety. Jon just… hadn’t found them yet.

“That’s not something I was worried about.” The sheets covering Jon’s legs rustled when Gerard leaned forward. “Likewise, do you think I won’t be wondering whether you’re safe when I’m not here? But this is something I have to do before we leave.”

The way he said it made Jon feel funny. “I’m not going anywhere. I can’t, remember?” he said. It sounded more bitter than he’d intended.

“That’s not it, either. Not…” Gerard exhaled in a sigh. His breath was dangerously close to Jon’s face. “I will be back soon. I won’t die somewhere, I’ll return as soon as I can.” He tried to sound reassuring and all Jon could hear was his resolve, and in the spaces between the lines, something else too. Fear?

He had no time to question Gerard and as soon as he tried to speak, Gerard’s lips brushed his, his mouth warm and gentle against Jon’s. It wasn’t nearly as much of a shock as he would’ve thought. It was… really nice, actually. He hadn’t been kissed in many, many years, not since before he’d been promoted to Head Archivist.

It didn’t last too long, but Jon was dazed when Gerard pulled away, only to hold their foreheads together.

“Jon I…. That’s…”

“I wish I could see you.” Jon whispered. He didn’t even know he’d been holding onto that thought.

“You will.” Gerard smoothed his hands across Jon’s shoulders. He hooked his fingers under the white hospital gown and Jon shivered. “Later.”

They were quietly affectionate after that. It didn’t take very long for Gerard to get his things together from around the room and when he lingered, it was only for the sake of touching Jon again, nuzzling his nose down the crook of Jon’s neck and breathing in his scent. He didn’t tell Jon so, but what other reason was there?

Eventually, Gerard did leave. Jon had no idea what time it was -- he was still tired, still sleepy, still in pain, though most of it had no physical origin. He listened to the sound of Gerard’s footsteps as they faded into the distance and then cast his awareness out, searching for any hints of Gerard’s presence, any trail he could follow.

There was nothing. There never was with Gerard.

_ You’re still recovering, _ the Archivist offered.  _ He won’t be able to hide at the height of your power. _

Maybe not, but did Jon want to go against his own word? He hadn’t promised not to follow Gerard, but it’d been implicit.

Jon breathed deeply and closed his eyes. He tried to relax, tried to stretch his back and shed the thoughts that insisted on staying with him. Gerard seemed to orbit every single one of them. Gerard was… well, Jon wasn’t sure. He cared for him, of course he did. Maybe more? It was difficult to separate Gerard from what he’d gone through with the Hunt. What did that make him?

A crutch. Where had he heard that before? Oh. Yes. Elias. Gerard had become his crutch and Jon wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He couldn’t quite imagine life without Gerard around and yet… he had to, at least for now.

_ Which means you’ll have to don the Archivist title again and do something for yourself; for ourselves.  _ Jon didn’t like the way that sounded, he didn’t want to reach back for the Institute, but that was something he’d neglected to do for far too long. He’d been awake for weeks already. Gerard’s absence was only a very convenient excuse to finally do so.

Despite having lost his phone -- along with the rest of his belongings -- when the Hunt had taken him, Gerard had got him some sort of cheap prepaid cell phone and Jon knew the Archives’ number by heart.

Muscle memory was a funny thing. He couldn’t quite walk the length of his tiny hospital room without stumbling on something, but he knew exactly which buttons to press in the correct order to connect him to the Magnus Institute.    


He didn’t bother to check for the time. Gerard -- always Gerard -- had tuned the phone’s accessibility mode and even blind, it wasn’t too difficult to figure it out. Still, Jon didn’t want to try. If no one picked up then at least he wouldn’t have to go through another painful conversation in one day.

“What do you mean you’re putting it off?,” he said, just to hear something besides his own heartbeat and that obnoxious static ringing in his ear -- ring, ring, ring, rinse and repeat.

Jon was about to assume that it was either too early or too late in the day and that no one was around the Archives when the phone went silent. Shortly after, he heard someone speak.

“Hello?”

It was slightly distorted, fuzzy around the edges -- probably something with the lines -- and it took Jon a moment to recognise it.

“Tim?” he asked.

It wasn’t conscious -- not willing. It was… a reaction, like a muscle fluttering out of its own volition. Jon didn’t know how he’d done it, only that for a very brief instant, he Saw and he Knew it was indeed Tim, that he was sat at his desk, the lights dim all around him. And then he was gone, snapping back into his own head.

Jon had the very distinct impression he had just been flipped off.

Obviously there was someone in the Archives -- Tim was there. A large part of him wanted to just drop it; if Tim didn't want to talk, that was fine, Jon could just pretend he'd informed his employees of his condition and be done with it, right? But then, there were questions he needed to ask; things he needed to figure out; paperwork he needed, somehow, sending to him.

No. He really couldn't just be done with it. Jon stifled a sigh. The hope Tim wouldn't pick up a second time was largely a lie.

Jon found himself redialling the Institute and waiting for a couple seconds before -- as he’d predicted -- the phone was put down on him.

The third time went exactly the same.

By then, Jon was doing it only out of spite.  _ Fine, Tim, two can play this game. _

He called for the fourth, and honestly, the last time in a row and waited. And... waited. Eventually, Tim picked up -- Jon only knew it was Tim because there were no words, no convenient script for him to interrupt. Instead, the wait was followed by a scraping noise and then… silence. Well, mostly silence. Very faintly, Jon heard some sort of music playing in the background and… tapping, as it someone were typing on a keyboard from a mile away.

“Tim?”

No reply.

Jon wasn't sure how long it took until something else happened. He rested the phone facing up on his chest and was had almost dozed off -- almost given up waiting on Tim to stop being an arsehole -- when, muffled by the static, voices rang through.

He lifted the phone to his ear just in time to hear someone speak. “You deal with him.” Oh. That was definitely Tim.  _ Fuck you too, Tim. _

“I'm- what do you mean? Oh, okay, uh.” Then, much closer and much clearer. “Um, hello? Magnus Institute Archives-”

“Martin? Thank Christ.” Jon didn't think he'd been this glad to hear from Martin since the whole Prentiss incident.

“Jon? A-are you alright?” He heard Martin stutter slightly, tripping over his own words. “It’s been over three months! Elias said you were fine, but you know… “ He added, more quietly, “I think everyone’s been worried about you. Uh, sorry, I’m sorry! Is there something you wanted?”

Jon didn’t mention that he Knew, with the kind of certainty that came from being his boss and a supernatural entity, that Tim hadn’t been worried about him.

“I’m fine,” Jon lied. Even if his voice gave it away, Martin was always easy to appease. “How have things been over there?”

“Uh good? I mean, quiet? Everyone’s fine if that’s what you’re wondering about, we go out sometimes… to the pub, you know? And… um, Elias has us doing a bit of overtime since you’re not here, but that’s understandable, really.”

Jon had to grit his teeth to keep himself from groaning. Of course Elias would do something like that; of course Martin was too nice to- just, too nice.

“Have there been many new statements?”

“A few? I don’t always see them come in here but the pile keeps growing so… I guess so?”

“I don’t suppose you can rifle through them and tell me if there’s anything recent on circuses or mannequins or anything to do with people that aren’t really people? Oh and, hunters and-” Jon debated with himself mentally for a second before adding, “Gerard Keay. If we have any statements from him or including him that I didn’t record.”

Once again, Jon hadn’t even noticed he’d reached for Martin’s presence -- all the way across the ocean in a tiny dusty room in London -- until surprise and a slight wariness bled through him.

Martin hesitated. “I can try to do that, it’s a bit of a mess but I’ll start looking right now.”

“I know…” They really needed an index system and Jon just hadn’t had the time to do it. “Thank you, Martin.”

Jon didn’t hear Martin sigh. He didn’t see him shake his head or the way his lips curled downwards in a bit of a pitiful smile. He didn’t experience any of these things, but he felt all the same, as if they had happened to him.

Guilt welled in Jon’s stomach. It wasn’t fair of him; it was never fair -- to any of them.

“Is there something else you needed?” Martin asked. He didn’t whisper, but his tone was tight and small.

“If- when you find something, can you… I know this is troublesome of me to ask you... But when you do, can you call me back?”

“You don’t want it mailed to where you’re staying?”

How was he meant to explain? Jon opened his -- the Archivist’s -- eyes and he Saw: the Archives were dark. Martin’s eyes flickered upward and he caught a glimpse of the wall mounted clock. It was late -- past working hours. Half a sandwich had been left unwrapped on Martin’s desk, barely visible through the mountain of papers that surrounded a shiny new tape recorder. Jon didn’t think he would’ve noticed the details if Martin hadn’t known them.

There was a lump in his throat. Jon swallowed down his and Martin’s emotions.

He wouldn’t lie again. It was like handing himself to Elias on a silver platter; just giving in to what his “Master” had planned, and Jon wasn’t about to do that.

“I can’t re-” Jon felt something wet on his face -- no, not his face. “Martin are you quite alright?”

“I’m- I’m j-just, um, really worried about you?” Martin hiccuped softly.

Jon felt him move, kicking away from the desk to pace the room when he didn’t immediately reply. Worry and pain and frustration all flooded him, coiling in his chest; in his heart.

“I… I’m so sorry, Martin,” Jon admitted, gasping for breath all of a sudden. He wasn’t very good at… this, was he? Not without Gerard around. Now that was a laughable thought. Gerard in his mind again. “I’m- it was rough for a while but I’m fine now, and I should be able to return to the Institute soon enough.”

Martin seemed to connect the dots easily enough. “You- were you hurt? Jon, are you still hurt? Elias never said anything about-”

“He wouldn’t have told you the truth,” Jon said.

“And are you… telling me? The truth, I mean?”

His fist curled over the phone so tightly his fingertips ached.  “Yes I was… I was hurt. I’m almost recovered now.” Martin didn’t need to know about the torture, or the times Jon had technically died for a second or two. “I’ve had help and you- you shouldn’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Jon heard Martin sniffle, felt pressure at the base of his nose and the corners of his eyes.

“I told you… e-everyone’s worried. Even Tim. I know, he’s not… he’s not doing too good...” Martin trailed off, sounding dejected and just… sad.

“I noticed.”

“It’s not his fault, it’s been really difficult without you here. And he’s read some of the statements too. I’m-”

Jon interrupted him. “It’s not  _ your  _ fault, either, Martin.”

When he focused, Jon saw that Martin was looking in the direction of Tim’s desk -- where he used to sit, before Jon had left to travel the world -- and there he was still. Tim’s body was leant forward, elbows on the table and thick headphones wrapped around his head. He felt -- he didn’t even want to know what Martin felt, only he couldn’t pick and choose the emotions that surged through their connection: worry, pain, fondness, love?

Okay, Jon really didn’t need to know what.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeated. “You should talk to him.” And good luck with that, he thought. It wasn’t great advice but it was a good way to keep the conversation moving from the things he didn’t want to say.

“I tried, he’s just… “

Tim stood up, glanced over in Martin’s direction and there was a scowl firmly etched on his face. Jon saw him shake his head.

“Maybe you two can bond over how much he hates me,” Jon said, it wasn’t a joke. Through Martin’s eyes, he saw the way the Tim’s expression shifted, subtly relaxing the longer he stared in Martin’s direction.

Martin hadn’t even noticed, had he?

“That’s not really true! He doesn’t hate you, he’s just… I don’t know… overwhelmed, I think. We’re all overwhelmed. Please come back soon.”

At that, Jon’s chest deflated and with it, the resolve not to tell Martin; the resolve to lie, even if only by omission. “I will. I’ve recovered faster than expected and my doctor is hopeful that I’ll be able to leave soon enough.

Martin gasped, Jon felt the choked knot in his throat that meant Martin was trying hard to hold back more tears. “Doctor? A-are you in the hospital?”

“For now, yes,” Jon replied. “Like I said, I’m recovering quickly and should be discharged soon. After that I’m coming back to the Institute directly.”

“Just how hurt were you, Jon?” What happened to you? How could you not tell us -- tell  _ me  _ \-- earlier?

Jon grimaced, bile rising towards the back of his tongue. How could he not? He’d been conscious for long enough to think of letting them know -- what about everyone else he hadn’t told? Georgie? She’d worry.

_ You just don’t care. Not about them,  _ the Archivist stated blandly, unfurling in him like wings, or a cloak.

_ Of course I do. They’re my frien- _

_ No. Not about them. Not the way you think you do.  _ The image of a chess board, pawns neatly laid out, flashed in Jon’s mind.

_ They’re not pawns.  _ He bit down the inside of his cheeks until the metallic tang of blood swirled in his mouth, it was a relief, really. Only after did he speak. Martin was still waiting. “It was bad, but I’m not lying to you, Martin. I’m nearly well again.”

“I’m j-just- oh-”

From behind him -- well, behind Martin -- Jon heard someone else. “Just let him go,” Tim said.

The sensation of someone wrapping one arm around his waist and the shock it caused Martin was all Jon could feel for a while. When he closed his eyes, he could push the institute away and imagine that Gerard was back and… how many sorts of fucked up was that?

“I’m not doing anything. All I wanted to do was ask-”

“Drop it. He doesn’t need to talk to you,” Tim growled. He’d probably snatched the phone from Martin, from how close he sounded to Jon’s ear.

“All I wanted was to ask him to-”

“I don’t care. Look at what you’re doing and stop it.”

Martin was still trapped in Tim’s arms, pulled tight to his chest, connected to Jon’s consciousness by a strand of the Archivist’s will. “It’s f-fine Jon,” he said and then gasped. “I- I remember what you said… I, uh, I’ll call you back when I get it.”

That was all Jon heard before Tim hung up on him, again. Only this time, he Knew Tim’s reasons and he couldn’t really disagree with them.

His mind awareness snapped fully back to his body and he dropped the phone next to the bed, hoping that his nightmares wouldn’t feature either Martin or Tim.

 

\---

 

It wasn’t until nearly three and a half days later that Gerard finally returned. Not long enough for the forcibly logical part of Jon’s mind to start worrying he might be lying dead in a ditch somewhere, but still more than enough time for Jon’s consciousness to scan the hospital’s neighboring districts over and over again, looking for a trace of Gerard’s elusive presence.

What he found was nothing -- nothing related to Gerard, anyway. Clusters of power here and there, some as utterly foreign to Jon as space or the ocean’s depths would be. Once or twice he caught a hint of a larger presence, snaking its way across the land, almost too big to observe, too terrifying in its magnitude. He’d been pulled back by the Archivist before being able to get any closer.

And then, Gerard was back, like he’d never left at all. That was the premise -- the lie.

One moment, Jon had been sleeping -- not peacefully; since they’d taken him off the morphine drip his dreams were plagued by too many furred beasts made entirely of teeth and claws and antlers -- the next moment something fell over him, covering his body with theirs. There was a sound of metal hitting the floor and panting breaths.

Jon’s scream was muffed by a hand over his mouth. He bit down and immediately regretted it. Blood and dirt and… whatever else coated that palm, it tasted disgusting.

It retreated and he heard someone yelp -- no, not  _ someone _ , Gerard.

“Shit!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s… it’s me,” Gerard grunted against the side of Jon’s neck, he sounded as bad as Jon had felt a month ago, exhausted and broken. “It’s late, I didn’t want to wake you up and-- oh I’m sorry, Jon. I just… need a moment.”

Immediately, Jon stopped struggling -- not that it’d been very effective to start with. His back was flat on the thin medical mattress and he felt Gerard’s chest move, up and down, roughly pressed onto his.

What happened to you? Jon wanted to ask. He didn’t. Not yet. “Gerard? You’re... “ Jon tried to wedge one arm between them, reaching up towards Gerard’s face. His hair was damp, and so were his cheeks. “You need to sleep.” His fingers followed the line of Gerard’s jaw, tracing the welts on his skin.

“Hmm… yeah, probably. And so do you,” Gerard replied, each word more strained than the last. “Can you- can I?”

The question didn’t make much sense, but Jon didn’t need it to. Gerard’s knee nudged the inside of his thigh and Jon understood what Gerard meant almost immediately. He waited for Gerard to pull back a couple inches before moving to curl on his side at the edge of the bed.

“Yeah, stay here,” Jon breathed out softly. “Don’t go.”

Gerard turned sluggishly and Jon felt him move inch by inch, stretching so that the they were pressed together, as one. Jon was held so tightly, engulfed in the warmth of Gerard’s embrace, the sensation was almost overwhelming, and so, so nice.

He’d be stiff in the morning, probably get told off about it in his next therapy session. Jon didn’t think he’d care -- not now, anyway.

“Hmmmm, sleep,” he heard, lips brushing the back of his head, tickling his scalp.

Unintelligible mumbling followed. Jon wasn’t sure what it meant, if Gerard was talking in his sleep or apologizing again. All Jon remembered the next morning was that when he dozed off, it was to the steady sound of Gerard’s breathing, and to the puffs of heat that washed over his back every time he exhaled.

If Jon dreamt that night, he never recalled any of it; nothing but the image of a storm in the distance, and of thick arms -- like ropes -- that kept him grounded.

Predictably, by the next morning, Jon was in so much pain that he almost regretted letting Gerard crash in his bed. Not that telling him no had ever crossed his mind, really. Especially not after being woken up by a series of kisses; to Gerard nibbling up the curve of his chin to claim his mouth.

“What time is it?” Jon groaned when Gerard pulled back.

“Early, I need to go grab a shower and didn’t want you to wake up and think I’d left you again.” 

There were fingers combing strands of hair from his forehead and Jon smiled up in the direction of Gerard’s voice. He didn’t sound much better than before -- but then again, neither did Jon. More rested, perhaps, but not enough to make a difference.

“Go back to sleep,” Gerard continued. “I’ll be back before you know it. Maybe I won’t smell like something died on me, either.” He stroked the top of Jon’s head idly. “Oh and… I haven’t forgotten, I’ll… tell you what happened while I was gone. Later.”

Before Jon could protest the delay and being placated with physical affection, Gerard’s hand moved down, brushing over his mouth with his knuckles. Jon didn’t swat him away, but the urge to do so was right there, under his skin.

“I know I’ve spent most of my time here, but I do have a motel room nearby,” Gerard said when Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Give me an hour and I’ll be back here. But in the meantime, you should rest. We might not have much time for that later.”

Jon didn’t resist when Gerard kissed him again, holding their faces together for a long moment. It wasn’t one sided, but he was tired -- of the hospital; of being bed-ridden and unable to follow Gerard -- and resentful of his freedom.

_ Soon. Very soon you’ll be freer than you could ever imagine.  _ And,  _ thank you,  _ he thought.

“Just come back,” Jon said.

He heard the bed squeak when Gerard sat up and followed the sound of footsteps until they stopped. Jon didn’t need his sight to imagine the way Gerard -- the Gerard in his visions, long black coat and equally black hair, and those tattoos, swirling in place -- held to the doorframe and stared back in his direction, the softest of smiles on his face.

“You don’t have to worry about that, Jon. I will,” he said. And left.

Even against his conscious will, without Gerard around, without anyone to speak to and nothing to do -- and an ache that crept through his body, binding him in place -- Jon fell back asleep within minutes. 

And promptly came back to…well,  the scent of coffee, again -- strong coffee, the kind that made his eyes and his mouth water, albeit for different reasons. Heat radiated from his left and without thinking, Jon reached for it.

Something -- a strong grip -- kept him from succeeding, holding his wrist in place. “Careful or you’ll burn yourself,” Gerard said very quietly. “I guess I succeeded in not waking you up for once, and then the coffee did it for me.”

Jon heard the grin in his tone almost as a physical sensation and his heart soared in his chest. “Uh, yeah- have you been waiting for a long time?”

“Not really. I got you coffee, and um, something else too. I’m not sure what it is, though. Some sort of pastry? Hopefully you’ll like it.” There was a plastic rustling, like a bag being ripped open, and something was placed in his outstretched hand. 

He hesitated. “I’m not sure I should?”

Next to him, Gerard shrugged and Jon heard him take a sip from what he assumed was his own mug of coffee. From the smell alone, he knew it was good, but then Gerard made a little noise of pleasure and he felt shivers run through him.

After weeks surviving on bland, mushy hospital food -- and much worse before that -- Jon gave in to the temptation fairly quick. He hadn’t even realised he’d been hungry until his stomach grumbled and his breath quickened. 

He sat up, legs hanging off the bed.

Both the pastry and the coffee were delicious and the only downside to them was the way Jon swayed against Gerard after he’d finished, sleepy all over again and delightfully warm from the inside out. Coffee had never had much of an effect on him and coupled with his lingering exhaustion… well, it wasn’t really an excuse, but Jon didn’t need one. 

Gerard wrapped one arm around his waist, helping Jon stay half upright when he tried to rest his head on Gerard’s shoulder. “Did anything happen while I was gone?”

Jon knew he didn’t have to answer. Gerard probably wouldn't even hold it against him, and instead of recounting the painful tale that was trying to get Tim to pick up the phone -- or admitting he’d asked Martin to look stuff up for him -- he let himself relax against Gerard’s chest.

“Not really,” Jon said. The lie felt strangely heavy on his tongue. 

Did he trust Gerard?  _ With my life _ , Jon didn’t have to admit it to himself, he’d known it for months already. He’d trusted the man before they’d even met. And now…

“Sounds like you had a great time then,” Gerard jabbed, but it was a gentle thing, no bite at all. “Well, do you want me to tell you now or would you rather nap on me? I’m up for either.”

The more Jon leaned, the more Gerard shifted around to accommodate him, parting his knees and turning to sit cross-legged on the bed so that Jon could rest on his lap, head tilted slightly over his thigh. It was comfortable, and Jon would’ve easily gone back to sleep like this… and yet, it wasn’t what he wanted. 

_ And what exactly do you want, Jonathan Sims? _

Feeling bolder all of a sudden, he yanked on the leather sleeve of Gerard’s jacket. “Take off your coat and nap with me,” he demanded. Was that really him? His own voice? It felt strange to give in to something he wanted, for once.

“I mean, I’m not going to say no to that, but you’re the one who needs the rest here. And you should have another couple hours before anyone comes to check on you.”

Still, If Gerard had any problems with it, he didn’t show them. As for Jon’s fear that he might’ve misstepped, Gerard obeyed immediately -- almost like he’d been commanded or compelled to do so.

Jon felt him stretch up, fingers idly running down Jon’s spine as he removed the jacket; felt coarse skin brush his when Gerard’s shirt rode up his chest, as he lay down; felt… just Gerard, all of him; felt safe and warm and better than he had in a long time.

Maybe that was the lie. But at least he had this now -- for now.

“Better?” Both of Gerard’s curled arms around Jon, his hands firmly clasped across Jon’s hip. 

“Hmm,” Jon agreed. “Besides, you’re also tired.” Jon didn’t point out how he could’ve used other words, how he could’ve told Gerard exactly how he Knew of his exhaustion.

“Touché.”     
  



	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard's statement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note this chapter features some extra warnings:
> 
> \- Gore  
> \- The Flesh

Jon’s tape recorder had been set on the tiny bedside table -- if it could really be called that -- next to his and Gerard’s phone and the many bottles of meds he was supposed to be taking. Despite not being able to see the thing, Jon felt its presence as a physical pull, as if the recorder weighed on reality itself, molding gravity to its will.

Jon couldn’t say he’d ever noticed it before: the way the entire room appeared to still, to hold its breath as it waited for Gerard’s statement. Perhaps it was just another logical step in the growth of his powers, perhaps it was something unique to his connection to the Archivist. He didn’t know and he didn’t like it.

It gave him a headache.

Jon held both hands up to his temples and kneaded circles into his skin.    


None of the other statements he’d taken from his hospital bed had had such an effect on him and it was such a stark difference -- brewing dark in the back of his skull before they’d even started -- that it honestly gave him pause.

“Are you alright?” He heard Gerard ask.

Jon sat on the bed, which had been moved so he could rest up against the nearest wall. There were a few pillows behind his back and Gerard had made sure they wouldn’t be interrupted by any well-meaning doctor or nurse. How? He hadn’t thought to ask, wasn’t sure he needed to know.

“Hmm, just getting ready.”

The problem now was… well, it was Gerard. 

The cause of his discomfort, the reason for the cut-through-with-a-knife pressure in the room that dug like fingers into his eye sockets. It was all Gerard. He might not be a monster, not in the sense Jon had become one, but at the same time, he wasn’t entirely human either, was he? He was marked, just like Jon.

Gerard didn’t pace the room -- he walked back and forth, his boots making far too much noise over the tiled floor. There was too much jittery energy in him to keep still; Jon would’ve done the same, if he weren’t still recovering. 

“I didn’t realise it’d have this sort of effect on you, it never… with her…” Gerard trailed off. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked again.

Filling his chest, filling his head, the Archivist swelled. It wanted, it  _ needed  _ \-- with the kind of primal hunger the Hunt’s creatures knew -- this statement and all Jon could do was hold it back for a little bit longer.

“I want to know what happened to you,” Jon said when he couldn’t admit he had no choice here, and that he Knew Gerard’s words would be the ones to trigger his full recovery. It didn’t make sense -- but it didn’t have to. He needed it as much as the Archivist. “And you, are you… still okay with it?”

“Yes, I’m fine Jon. I told you I’d do this and I’m not going to go back on my word,” 

“Right… right. Can you-”

He didn’t have to finish, Gerard pressed down the recording button on the tape recorder. Immediately a cool calm washed over him, replacing the nerves and the headache with watchful focus.

“Statement of Gerard Keay regarding the three and a half days he spent… Um…” Jon tilted his head in the direction of Gerard’s footsteps, following the sound with his empty gaze. He blinked, like it might help him discern Gerard’s form any better.

“My time spent in the company of Jared Hopworth,” Gerard finished smoothly. He stopped in his way across the room and Jon heard him rub his hands together. Tic? Whatever it was, bone cracked and Jon had to hold back a dry sob. 

The avatar’s name was enough to send an icy shudder jolting up Jon’s spine, not the Archivist’s. He was taken aback. “What? That man is-”  _ The Bone Turner's Tale real owner and a monster, like you Jon, _ he thought. Maybe the Archivist did, antsy for its statement. 

Gerard sighed. “I know what he is, I knew the danger I was getting into, Jon. Do you want me to give this statement or not?”

Jon bristled, the fear sapping from him -- or morphing into something else altogether, something like fire. 

Inside of him the Archivist moved, its fury thrumming in his veins.  _ Stop pining and get his statement _ , it growled and… it took some effort, but Jon ignored it.

“That's not the point! You knew you could've died and you went anyway! If you'd died what would I have-”

Fingers slid over his shoulder, nearly too hard to feel reassuring. Gerard’s hand shook against his skin. Jon hadn't noticed Gerard was so close to him and he almost jumped at the suddenness of it. He had nowhere to go and after a second, he was pulled towards Gerard in a tight hug. Their hands intertwined, squeezing firmly like the gesture alone was enough to convey what was left unspoken.

“I didn't die! I'm not some bloody idiot, Jon. I knew to be careful around that guy, and I'll tell you all about that if you actually let me.” Jon felt lips touch the tender skin around his eye, then higher, kissing his brow. “I'm here and I'm not leaving you unless you ask me to. So just let me and… I'll get on with it.”

“This doesn't mean I'm happy about it. You risking your life, again. ”

Gerard kissed him properly, pulling their clasped hands between them, holding on to Jon for dear life. He shuffled forward, forcing Jon to move with him

“It doesn't have to make you happy, but you know it's the truth,” Gerard said, breathing close to his ear. 

The he pulled back like it'd never happened. He sat beside Jon, their hands still touching. It made the tension growing in him the more incongruous with his feelings and the way Gerard’s palm covered his. Not only confusing but painful, in a way. 

“So, statement. Okay so, it had just started to darken when I left you. You probably haven't realised and the rooms are kept bloody cosy here but it's freezing outside. I probably would've iced up if I didn't keep moving. 

“Anyway, backtracking a bit. It happened when you were still unconscious. I honestly didn't know if you were going to make it and I couldn't not do… Anything! So I walked around and tried to stop people from being claimed. You know the works,” Gerard paused, fingers tightening around Jon's again. “That's when your utter arsehole boss called and warned me about Jared Hopworth being in the area, and told me to do something about it.”

Jon heard himself gasp. “Gerard I didn't… _ ” know? _ He should have, should have seen through Elias interference. Was it the Archivist keeping it from him? 

“Jon, I know. This isn't your fault,” Gerard said and Jon knew immediately that wasn't all of it. He made a strangled noise and continued. “I… please just call me Gerry, okay?”

“Gerry?”

“I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry and, Jon... we're friends, right?”

What sort of question was that? He didn't ask it, it sounded too ridiculous in his own head, and coupled with the Archivist’s impatience… Well that wouldn't have gone down right. 

“Of course we are,” Jon replied. Of course they weren't. Not just friends. They'd kissed -- they had  _ just _ kissed. 

_ Do you kiss all your friends? _ Jon thought, desperate for the answer. He didn't ask, though. 

“Thank you,” Gerar- Gerry said, oblivious to Jon's distressed inner monologue. “So, Elias huh? It's a good thing this statement isn't about him or I'd have some words…

“It was freezing.  _ I _ was freezing. I remember pulling my coat tighter around me and following in the direction I knew I'd find Jared,” Gerry paused. “It's not like… I didn't feel him, not the same way I imagine you do, but it was impossible to ignore the trail of… fear, or maybe the utter lack of it, that he left behind.”

Gerry hummed a little, as if remembering something for the first time in a while. “I'd almost forgotten what I was doing out there in the ice cold night. You know it gets so overwhelming your senses all slow down?”

Jon thought he did, back when he'd slumped into that riverlet and almost died. He nodded. 

“It was like that one moment and the next I was… Not warm. I wasn't warm, but the wrongness- the otherness of Jared's presence negated how cold I was. I followed him down a couple of streets and into a rundown shop. I'm not sure what it was, it was closed, there was no sign and Jared was inside. Sure I was scared. I'm not immune to it but I knew what I had to do.

“The door was engulfed in shadows, deep blue and some lighter greys where the snow reflected off the doorknob. I knocked and… I waited. I’m not sure for how long. Long enough to know that I knew I’d been waiting for a little bit, but not longer.”

Against him, Gerry shivered as he spoke. “My first impression when it opened was the smell. Now, you know I’ve dealt with fair share of these things. I’ve seen- enough for another dozen statements, trust me. But the smell… um, it reminded me a little of when Sam brought us that dead hunter to snack on, if you take the rotted part, keep the ‘meat’ of it and multiply it a thousandfold.

“It smelled like blood and dust… somehow. I recognized the metallic scent of blood immediately, even though when I looked inside I saw none of the bloodbath I had expected But the rest? It was foreign to me. I wish… I wish it’d remained that way.”

Jon wanted to soothe Gerry’s pain away. At the same time, he also wanted to  _ know _ .

“‘Who the fuck are you?’ that’s what Jared Hopworth said - I assumed it was Jared - when he pulled the door open for me. He was… not what I was expecting. But then again, what the hell was I expecting? He was tall and…very large, easily three of me. That was my first impression. The second was that I had no idea what I was getting into but I wasn’t going to back down. Even though he only wore a shirt, he stepped out into the street and seemed to have no problem with the cold. 

“You’re probably thinking that I had a plan. I … well, sorta, I guess. I knew I had to stop Jared from getting to you and I knew he was searching. And I had some ideas on how to do that, but beside that, no, not really. I thought I’d figure something out after I’d gotten to know him better. Oh that sounds horrible.”

Gerry’s grip on his fingers tightened again, pulling Jon’s hand over his chest and holding it there, against his heart.  _ Friends,  _ the thought ran through his head. _ Friends? _ And, just how pathetic was he, to be this insecure of Gerry’s feelings?

“So I told him who I was. ‘An ally, looking to help him,’ I said. And I showed him my tattoos. Now the Eye isn’t exactly on the best of terms with the Flesh - they don’t want or need to be watched - so I knew I was putting myself at risk if he thought I was one of yours, but I explained… that I wasn’t a threat, that I wanted to help… get to you; that I could teach Jared how to outsmart the Eye.”

Jon swallowed, feeling like a piece of sandpaper had just been placed on his tongue, dry and rough. 

“That was the only way I could think of getting close enough to him to do something,” Gerry admitted and Jon could hear the apprehension in his tone; in the way his cadence shifted with each sentence spoken. “Thankfully I don’t think intelligence is his best attribute. He looked doubtful, I don’t think he believed me at first. He said something about ‘bloody rogues’, but he let me in, which was a relief. Not sure what I’d have done otherwise.

“I would’ve thought of something, but I didn’t have the time. You still don’t.”

What was that supposed to mean? 

“Inside, the shop was surprisingly clean and I didn’t see any blood anywhere. Not at first. Not until Jared led me down a well lit corridor and into a smaller room. In there I saw… well, they weren’t people anymore and I don’t believe they were alive. I don’t really...” Jon felt Gerry shake his head against him. “The Flesh is very fond of the Stranger but luckily, when Jared crossed the pond, he came alone so he was disposing of these bodies in his own way.”

Gerry’s voice dropped so low that despite being right next to him, Jon had to strain to listen. “‘How exactly do you think you’re gonna help?’ he growled at me. I swear he had too many teeth in his mouth. I told him I knew where you - where the Archivist was; that I knew he was searching and that I’d help him, if he helped me.    


‘Well, what do you want?’ he asked me. I told him that we’d never get to the Archivist if I couldn’t hide from the Eye properly, that would require… something deeper than just tattoos. It was a bluff but it paid off.

“Jared hadn’t stopped moving around the room while we talked. There was no book I could see, nothing that might’ve helped him, but he worked his… craft efficiently. As I watched, he removed a… I think it was a femur from… someone, and shaped it as a crude eye, and threw it at me. It-” Another shake of his head.

“‘I could do that to your bones if you wanted,’ he offered after he’d finished with the bodies. ‘Carve all those pretty tatts so deep you’re never gonna get seen again.’ All I could do was nod. ‘And after I practice with you I can do it to everyone, what a fucking great idea, mate.’ He grinned at me, waved for me to have a seat. I think I managed to say something like ‘now?’ because he nodded Then added, ‘actually, you’ll probably get all over my work here, so why not take it upstairs, you can lie down then, better for my bones you see.”

Jon didn’t want to know, not anymore, but he needed to.

“I followed him, looking around for something I might use to kill, or neutralise him. There was nothing I could see. Then we arrived at yet another room, this time without the bodies, though the smell of blood lingered. There was a bed on it and he gestured for me to lie down. ‘I really would rather not,’ I remember telling him, to which he shrugged. ‘Hey it’s your problem, but at least use this.’ 

“I don’t know where he’d got it from, but he held out a bottle in one hand and some pills in the other. I think I don’t have to mention how much I didn’t trust him, so I declined. ‘I’ve had worse,’ I said, which I thought was the truth, back then.”

Gerry was shaking against him, still holding on to Jon’s hand so hard it hurt. He felt queasy.

“I had no choice. I sat and he… started working, though not before giving me a thick leather scrap to bite into. I- I really had no choice. ‘If you scream, someone’s bound to come check, don’t really want that, do we?’

“Did you know bones have their own smell? I mean, sure, I don't think you're a vegetarian? But there's something about having one of your own bones taken from inside you and being able to smell it that made my stomach turn. If I didn't have that gag in my mouth I would've probably puked.

“He held me down and told me he was going to start small, just get me used to it… I don’t know the order of it. I’d never-”

He heard Gerry’s breath hitch, again and again, and realised that there were tears in his own eyes, rolling down the curve of his cheeks. “Gerry I’m- You shouldn’t-”

But Gerry didn’t let him finish. “I’m fine, I need to… “ Jon heard him inhale, felt small drops land on his knuckles. “He started with my left knee. I don’t know how to describe it. There was no blood, and the pain… it was nothing like being burned. I’ve been burned before, you’ve… felt them. It wasn’t like that, it wasn’t superficial. It wa- I think I blacked out for a little while, that’s how agonising it was.

“‘You shouldn’t be looking,’ I think I heard Jared say through the blood pumping in my ears and the searing pain that stretched up and down my leg. I couldn’t close my eyes though, I saw the way Jared’s fingers pierced my skin and pulled the bone, and- that wasn’t the worst of it. He stood and examined it, like it was a prized piece of art, then went to the corner of the room - which I hadn’t noticed before - and sat at a desk.

“I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even scream. I think I was crying then, but I don’t know. I um, I heard him then. ‘You sure you don’t want to tell me where he is? I can deal with him myself you know. Fuse the sockets in his skull, keep the Archivist from seeing out of it ever again. At least not without a drill,’ he said, and he… he laughed.

“Jared saw me screaming and… he pulled the gag from my mouth. I almost bit my tongue then, or maybe I did? There was blood in my mouth - not just the scent of it. I shook my head though, I wasn’t going to tell him yet - or ever, but he didn’t need to know that.

“‘You know, you can leave if you don’t wanna go through it,’ Jared said. ‘It’s a wonder what they can do with knee replacements these days.’ He was still holding my kneecap in his hand and I- I couldn’t leave, it wasn’t about me, it never was. 

“He shrugged at me. ‘Guess you really hate them’, ‘I do’, I said, it wasn’t- it’s not a lie- I don’t hate you, Jon but I don’t give a shit about them, or their bullshit.

“Then he shoved the gag back in my mouth and… he started speaking again. ‘Try not to break your teeth and keep it down, don't want the cops to show up when I've got something important of yours on my table.’ I choked back some muffled sob and he just… kept talking. ‘Haven't had this place long enough to properly soundproof it.”

The more Gerry got into his statement, the more disjointed his story became, falling apart at the seams. It made sense -- Jon was able to puzzle it back together -- but it wasn’t the kind of thing that was easy to listen to.

“After he was done with my knee I…  watched Jared’s fingers dip into my flesh, felt them fumble inside of me for the next bone to toy with. 

“The worst… that’s when he carved them - the bones. He had a… a chisel, and even though he was at least five or six feet away from me and those bones weren’t inside of me, I could feel every splinter… every little stroke of his tools, and even after he returned them to me, my whole body throbbed… and- I think I was actually screaming by the end of it. I don’t know where the leather went, it was gone and all I heard was myself.

“Three days, I think. It took him three days to go through my entire body - well, most of it. I didn’t want him near my hands. I didn’t notice time passing as much as the constant pain, that’s why it took me so long to get back. That’s the thing with… pain, after a while it just gets dull. I still felt it, sure - it was solid agony the whole way through - but after he was done with me and started twisting his own bones, I could kinda move. Jared didn’t really pay me much attention, probably thought I was out for a while, too engrossed in his own work… so I used the opportunity to take him out.”

Gerry coughed, gagged and finally dropped Jon’s hand. “I just… just a moment, okay?”

There was movement, and Jon realised somewhat belatedly that Gerry had drawn up his legs on the bed, resting his head over his knees and holding it with both his hands. Jon was torn between the Archivist’s unwavering need for the statement to be finished, and his own -- still human, he hoped -- need to comfort Gerry.

It was a difficult battle to win. 

“You don’t have to… it’s okay, I’m here. Are you still hurting?” Jon asked, reaching to gently rub his palm over the back of Gerry’s neck. His fingers ached a little and he ignored it -- his pain was nothing compared to Gerry’s.

“No, I need to finish it,” Gerry said. He sounded wrecked beyond belief. “Thank you, Jon.” He took another deep breath, face turning in Jon’s direction.

“The reason I watched Jared work was so I could understand how he did it. Now, I’ve hunted enough Leitners to grasp some of their power. I’d never be able to do what Jared did, but I didn’t have to and I don’t want to deal with the Flesh either. I uh… I saw and I learned some of it and I waited until he was distracted, facing away from me. 

“I think I wobbled. My eyes were blurry but his hulking body was still visible. And I reached into him -- into his spine.”

Gerry’s whole body convulsed, falling forward. For a moment, Jon was reminded of what he Knew of Gerry’s death -- brain tumour, seizures -- and his heart stopped in his chest. It was a short-lived terror, although the realisation that Gerry had actually puked wasn’t…a good one. It was better, Gerry wasn’t  _ dead _ , but it wasn’t good, either.

“Fuck. Are you okay?” Hot slime covered his hands where he touched Gerry’s shirt. Jon wiped it away on the bedsheets and reached for them, lifting some of the fabric to Gerry’s lips, wiping them clean. “You don’t have to finish.” He did. He did, but Jon wouldn’t force him --  _ couldn’t  _ force him.

“No. I will… sort this later.” Gerry sniffled. “Lemme finish first.”

Jon didn’t resist that.

“My fingers sunk through Jared’s skin, through his flesh and it was… like touching warm clay. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel like a person should have -- but of course, Jared hasn’t been human in a long time. It, uh... clung to my hand. His body… pulled on mine and it felt like he was reaching for my fingerbones from within himself, he almost got them. The pain was nothing compared to before, though and I was able to ignore it for a bit as I searched. 

“I knew I had to get his original body if I wanted to succeed, and that I had to be quick about it. By the time I found what felt like vertebrae I had only enough strength to yank on them and run. I could barely stand, I have no idea how I got out of there.

“But I did. I got downstairs, almost slipped and fell on some fucking bones, barely caught myself. Outside was bright -- snow and sunlight -- and I kinda stood there for awhile, just… dazed. I didn’t even know if I’d made it until he noticed no one was coming after me. 

“I… I had to go back, after. I had to check if he’d been disabled for long enough for me to take you away. And uh, call the police. So I did those things -- he seemed pretty motionless but I don’t know -- and then I came here. You know the rest.” Gerry finished with a tiny breathless noise. Then he went utterly silent.

“That was, um, I mean, statement ends.” Jon didn’t know what else to say. Relief, pain and that post-statement giddiness all flooded him in equal measures. In the space of a couple of days, he’d almost lost Gerry to something that seemed… so much worse than the Hunt. And he’d done it all to protect Jon from an equally terrible fate.

_ Would I have done the same in his place? Would I have nearly sacrificed my life for Gerard Keay? _ Jon thought, despairing when he didn’t know or see the answer to it. 

No. The Archivist would’ve never done it, but Jon tried to believe there was still enough humanity left in him for an act of selflessness.

“Come on, you need to get cleaned up,” Jon said. The statement itself had strengthened him and he felt refreshed in a way he hadn’t in weeks. His fingers moved against Gerry’s chin, tilting his head closer to Jon’s. “Come on, Gerry… please, you need to- this is my fault. I shouldn’t have accepted your offer.”

“You needed it, and if I hadn’t… You’d-”

“No,” Jon said, slightly clipped, though not with anger-- not at Gerry anyway. “No more speaking. You need to get up and we need to get you sorted, and then… we need to leave this place.” 

Gerry didn’t resist, he didn’t speak. Not when Jon swung his legs off the bed and shakily tried to stand; not when he tugged on Gerry’s arm and they mutually helped each other; or when he tried not to collide with the walls as he led them both down a series of corridors, towards where he thought the ward’s bathrooms were located.

At one point, Jon heard one of the nurse’s voices, she asked what he was doing and he had no qualms compelling her to guide them into the showers, or to leave and keep quiet afterwards. If Gerry thought anything about that, he didn’t bring it up. Jon was glad for that.

They were both broken, far too exhausted to care and, in Jon’s case, still emboldened by the Archivist’s delight. 

Gerry showered himself. He didn’t ask for Jon’s help and there was still a gaping maw of doubt and fear and… whatever else between what they shared and… helping the man undress or helping him shampoo his hair or anything equally intimate. 

He didn’t even know if Gerry was fine with getting naked right next to him because of his blindness, or if he simply didn’t care. Somehow, the latter was easier to understand, although not thanks to any of the Archivist’s abilities. No. If he were the one showering, he’d feel the same and well... he wouldn’t have minded if Gerry saw him. Honestly, chances were he already had, either while taking care of him after running him from the Hunt or during the day after, when they’d been lost in that forest.

Jon had been vulnerable and Gerry’s presence had made him comfortable, he realised. This wasn’t just a role reversal, it was something else; it was a concept Jon had no words for.

“Can you get me a towel?”

Jon snapped back to attention all of a sudden, nearly losing his footing against the wall. Steam rolled from somewhere nearby, tickling his face and coalescing into little beads of sweat that rolled down his back. He still needed clothes besides his hospital gown, but that was… for later, for after Gerry had been taken care of. “Yeah, just give me one moment.”

Thankfully, the area’s layout was simple and the towels were stacked in one neat pile he’d already brushed past earlier. He found them and soon after, heard the sound of Gerry patting himself dry, maybe two or three feet from him.

When Jon shivered, it wasn’t the heat.

“Thank you. You didn't have to do any of that and… you did.” Gerry reached for his bare arm, gave him a squeeze and Jon clenched his eyes shut. 

In return, Jon traced the length of Gerry's wrist and further up, until he reached his elbow. “And you didn't have to rescue me, either. Not before, not now. But you did.”  _ You did so much more than that, why?  _ he thought. 

Gerry stepped closer, the towel hanging over his shoulders -- Jon felt it touch his face. “I think you know the answer to whatever you're not asking, Archivist. And no, I'm definitely not in your head, but that face.” He leaned closer, shallow breaths against Jon's lips. “it really gives it all away.”

When they kissed, it was Gerry's still-damp chest that pinned him to the wall. There was no reason to resist and Jon didn't, not when Gerry's knee slid between his legs or when his mouth ran the down to nibble at the underside of his jaw and the hollow of his throat. 

It was more intense than before and that wasn't Jon's doing. Gerard needed this and Jon was happy to let him have it. Whatever this was. 

“Jon,” Gerry mumbled, his fingers curled under the loose, wide straps on Jon's gown and he kissed a path across his collarbone. “I'm not…” he sighed against skin. “Just stop me, I'm not… Right. I'm not right, right now. I'm sorry. ” 

Jon touched the top of Gerry’s head. He stroked the wet hair, gently combing his fingers through it. “I.. I have no idea how you could be, after what happened.” Jon hesitated for a moment, it was something he wasn't sure he could've admitted, before. “But I like this… and, what you said before, during the statement… I-”

How was he meant to bring it up? 

Jon's breath quickened, his stomach fluttered. “You asked me to call you Gerry. I like that name- I like you. And I want to help, the way you did.”

That was as close to ‘I enjoy it when you kiss me’ and ‘you're so much more than a friend to me’ as Jon thought he'd manage today. But Gerry seemed to get it, because although he wasn't overly quick or enthusiastic about it, he nodded and chuckled the tiniest, most heartbreaking chuckle Jon had ever heard. And then, he pressed what Jon thought was a grin to the base of his neck, over his frantic pulse. 

“Yeah, that wasn't the smartest thing I've ever said.” Gerry didn't move. “I wanted you to call me Gerry and I-” he paused and Jon thought his heart did too, the sound suspended between them. It was only when he continued that reality fell back together, his heartbeat exploding in his chest, “you're more than a friend to me. I'm not… Experienced in this sort of thing. Ask me to hunt these books and I'll do it, no bloody problem. But this? It's uh-”

“Terrifying?” Jon offered quietly. 

“Different kind of fear, but yeah.” Gerry nodded. “Not to mention, you  _ are  _ the Archivist, and I thought I was over getting involved in that sort of thing…  I guess not.”

“You didn’t have to get involved.” It felt like a lie -- Elias had interfered, it wasn’t  _ really _ out of Gerry’s free will, was it?

“No, I didn’t... I’ve told you before, I’m… not as defenceless as you think I am. But my point was I wanted to. I- fuck-” Gerry pulled back and for a breathless moment there, Jon thought he was going to turn away. Instead, he collected Jon in his arms, the entirety of his body -- still naked, still damp -- pressed to his. “I wanted to stay with you. I still do. And I haven’t felt that in… fuck knows how long. A long time. Ever? I don’t know.”

“I-” Jon knew exactly what to say, and something held him back. A kind of fear, yes, that was right. “I also want you to stay with me.” Jon bit down on his bottom lip. “Not because of what you’ve done for me- not only, I should say. But for giving me what I needed when I didn’t even know what that was. When I  still… don’t know..”

“It’s hard to put into words, isn’t it?” 

Jon hummed in agreement. It felt like an understatement, or another lie. It wasn’t hard to put into words, there just weren’t enough words -- or the  _ right  _ words -- to describe what Gerry meant to him. 

There was a low rumble that Jon realised must be Gerry’s stomach, it was followed by a soft sigh and a kiss that ran the length of his cheek, up towards the scarred flesh under his eyes. 

“Yup, I don’t know either. I mean, I know a lot of words, some of which could apply to the situation, but I don’t know if you want me to call you boyfriend or whatever?” Gerry tried to sound casual, but Jon had been around him for long enough to hear through the facade and realise the tone for what it was: anxious.

“I- don’t think I would mind it,” Jon said.

“Oh, I can definitely do that, then. And uh, I’m sorry about-” Jon couldn’t see, and he couldn’t feel it, either, but he imagined Gerard waving one arm above him. “You know, not getting dressed before springing this talk on you. I wasn’t really thinking clearly after giving the statement and yeah… no excuse. I’m sorry.”

It really wasn’t fair that when Gerry let go of Jon, he immediately missed his touch, the skin to skin contact that had him feeling safe, protected -- cared for.

“You should be,” Jon chided, faking annoyance.. “Next time at least invite me to shower with you before you get me all wet again.” It was the flimsiest attempt at a joke and it probably fell flat, but then Gerry laughed and well, that was enough for him.

“Next time, I’ll wash your hair for you.” Gerry leaned closer again, Jon felt the fabric of his shirt brush his shoulder and his breath in his ear. “Boyfriend.” When Jon chuckled, he added, “You know what, I take it back, that sounds stupid. Partner?”

It was silly and childish and so much better than hanging on the despair and the pain, both of which they had far too much of. 

“Partner,” Jon repeated. It was nice. It felt nice to say it and to mean it. 

“Or you can call me yours,” Gerry added, more quietly, his tone suddenly serious again. “I’d like that, so can you?” His tongue dipped into Jon’s earlobe and he bit down, gentle enough that though it didn’t hurt, Jon felt shivers run up and down his spine. 

“Yours,” Jon gasped softly. “Yours. I’m-” This wasn’t what Gerry had meant, but he knew it was right. “I’m yours.”

“Fuck, Jon.” Gerry mouthed his ear, Jon felt his whole body twitch like he’d been shocked. “Yeah, that’s… that’s… I’m yours too.”

They were mostly silent in the aftermath of their confessions -- rather, Jon was mostly silent while Gerry finished getting dressed. Even through the scent of body wash and puddles of soapy water -- which Jon was trying not to slip on -- he could smell sweat and blood and rot. And he thought that wasn’t all Gerry. He stank too. 

But there was something else, a vague threatening pressure in his head. They needed to get out of the hospital, and soon.

“I’ve never really done anything like this before,” Gerry was saying, over the sound of his voice, Jon heard a rustle and something being zipped. “Not really. So if I fuck up, yeah.”

“I think I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, after all you’ve done for me-” Jon corrected himself, and again, his stomach pitched, it felt right and a smile stretched across his face. “For us.”

For them.

Jon barely had a moment for the words to sink in his mind, and then Gerry slammed onto him, knocking -- no, kissing the breath from his lips. Arms snaked under his, tightening around his waist, squeezing him so close that he felt Gerry’s thundering heartbeat against his chest.

“That’s right,” Gerry said. “For us.” And he kissed Jon again.

 


	13. Chapter 13

“Hold still, I don’t want to accidentally hurt you,” Gerry told him, one of his hands squeezing Jon’s chin, the tips of his fingers running over his cheekbones.

Jon sat at the edge of Gerry’s motel bed. His legs hung off the edge, his right foot still wrapped in swathes of bandages and a thick walking boot that made his ankle throb. It wasn’t the most comfortable of positions, not with the way Gerry held on to his head, but it wasn’t exactly painful, either.

Self discharging from the hospital hadn’t been as simple as Jon would’ve preferred, but after Gerry’s insistence that they had to leave, his sudden appearance as Jon’s partner in the paperwork, and the Archivist’s useful compelling abilities, they had both made it out mostly unscathed. There had been forms to sign and Gerry now carried another satchel full of medicine Jon couldn’t just stop taking or else he’d risk withdrawal symptoms, but he’d gotten to sleep in a proper bed with Gerry cuddled up to him, and that… that was fine. He was fine.

They were both just fine.

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” 

From beside him, he heard Gerry draw breath sharply, he couldn’t imagine the look on his face, a funny scowl, probably. “You look like a bear with mange, Jon - I mean, I’m not complaining although I probably should - but it’s not exactly the nondescript look you want, right? Unless you plan on trying to compel everyone who asks what happened to you.”

“And you don’t think this is hypocritical in the slightest?”

Jon felt him shrug. “It’s not the same thing, I- better, feel.” He lifted Jon’s hand towards his face, until his knuckles brushed Gerry’s smooth jawline. “You need a shave, if you want to try and do it yourself, I’m… I would really prefer if you let me do this.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Gerry added after a moment of silence.

“I’m aware of that… it’s not-” Jon ended by shaking his head, felt the hint of tears burn in the corners of his eyes. 

It wasn’t about fear or pain. Those Jon could deal with. It wasn’t even about Gerry -- not in the slightest. But how else was Jon meant to accept that this perfectly mundane task was now completely beyond him? To accept that his sight was so inadequate -- so fucked up -- that he hadn’t even attempted to  _ think _ about shaving because he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it?

Jon’s breath died in his throat.  _ Face it, you wouldn’t be able to do anything without him, _ he thought.  _ And, do I really mind it? Should I? _

The Archivist’s presence had been quiet for so long, slumbering in the back of his mind, satiated by Gerry’s statement, that when its emotion echoed through him --  _ soon, very soon you won’t need them  _ \-- Jon clung to that hope instead of thinking about Gerry and the razorblade in his hand.

“Jon, whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true,” Gerry said. His nose brushed the tip of Jon’s and he promptly pulled back to kiss it. “I don’t want to push you, but we fly out tomorrow and looking like this- I’m not sure I’ll be able to field all the questions either.”

Thankfully, Gerry’s free hand rested on Jon’s shoulder, keeping him from falling backwards when he forced his body to relax. He tried to exhale the tension out of him, as well as that slowly sinking feeling that burned in his stomach. 

“Just… just do it, okay.”

For a moment or two, all Jon heard were the cars backing up in the Motel’s parking lot, and the wind howling outside the door. When something cold and foamy touched his skin, Jon tried not to think about how ridiculous he looked with a soapy white beard. 

“You’re doing that thing with your face where it looks like you’re trying not to think,” Gerry mumbled. “Just relax, Jon.”

Gerry was slow -- probably on Jon’s behalf -- and careful. Jon remembered one of his first statements, back when he’d just taken the head Archivist position and he remembered that… well, Gerry was an artist. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that each of the razor’s strokes came with the sort of nimble precision Jon hadn’t ever experienced from an actual barber.

Or maybe it’d just been so long since he’d last gotten a shave he’d forgotten what it felt like.

He enjoyed it -- it was surprisingly pleasurable to feel the blade zip back and forth over his skin and listen to the way Gerry’s breath synched with his movement. If he didn’t think he’d get in the way and lose a finger, Jon would’ve reached to touch his chin, just to feel the contrast.

“Almost done, just need to - one second, bear with me.” He laughed and Jon huffed loudly.

When Gerry’s fingers stroked the base of his neck, Jon tilted his head up and stiffened, the aftershocks of pain rolling through him. 

Out of nowhere a base terror gripped him and following it, a flood of memories, like a wave: a dull knife pressed to the hollow of his throat, cutting through layers of skin, so close to just nicking his artery; to ending his life. Jon was terrified, it bled out of him -- it was one of his first times coming this close to death and he couldn’t -- didn’t, but mostly couldn’t -- fight it. 

He heard Daisy’s mocking words right next to him, in his ear; heard her cruel laughter morph into a deeper, concerned tone. Nothing made sense

“Jon? Are you alright? Do you need me to stop?” 

It was Gerry, of course it was Gerry. He’d touched the scar on his neck and -- Jon shook his head, or tried to, he could barely manage the motion, his every muscle locking up in fear. “N-no I'm fine... I just- don't worry about it.”

“That doesn’t sound like-” Gerry stopped, then his thumb gently ran the length of the scar on his neck. “Jesus, I didn’t know Jon.”

“H-how could you have possibly known? I didn’t tell you.”  _ I didn’t even remember, not on top of everything else _ , but he couldn’t say that. “It’s fine… I’m fine. It’s okay now, we actually work together. Sort of.”

“You’re shaking like a leaf, I wouldn’t count that as exactly fine,” Gerry said. He must’ve dropped the razor because both of his hands cupped Jon’s face, fingers drawing circles over his cheeks. “Jon, there’s no shame in being… you know, I bloody puked during that statement.” Jon felt Gerry’s lips turn down against his own, a grimace of sorts.

“You were in pain… I shouldn't have…” 

“And you’re not?” Gerry sounded… incredulous, his voice rising louder, higher pitched. “You need to cut yourself some fucking slack. Everything you’ve been through, there’s nothing wrong with being upset!”

It wasn’t his intention to flinch -- not from Gerry -- but Jon couldn’t fight his reaction and it was like… a lightning strike, at least in its suddenness, and its effects. Gerry pulled away immediately and Jon fell back on the bed with a startled cry.

“Fuck! I’m- I’m so sorry. Dammit.” Gerry rushed to kneel next to him -- Jon heard the mattress squeak and felt the way it dipped, rolling against his back when he moved. “Jon, you- I- fuck, I’m just messing up. I’m sorry, I never meant to make you- to hurt you.”

“I… I k-know.” That was the heartbreaking part of it: he knew exactly how it wasn’t Gerry’s fault and even then, he still couldn’t stop the dry sobs that wracked his body. “I c-can’t- can’t breathe.”

Gerry helped him back up, holding him half-upright in his arms. Jon didn’t resist. He couldn’t stop his chest from moving, up and down, and the tears from streaming from his eyes. He felt Gerry’s palm slide across his forehead and there was a tiny, vaguely amused part of him that wondered if he was getting shaving cream all over his face. 

“Shhhh, it’s okay Jon. You can cry, there’s- there’s nothing wrong with that.” 

There was, but Jon couldn’t fight it.

So for a long time, Jon cried. Gerry whispered calming words against him; kissed the wet trails that ran down the length of his cheeks and the sides of his neck; combed his fingers through the mess that was his hair. He didn’t stop, and neither did Jon. Not until it hurt to inhale and his whole head throbbed hotly, skin too tight. 

Even then, Gerry still didn’t stop. 

“That was a terrible idea and I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered and Jon heard it in his tone, in his diction; in the emotion that coated his voice... that he was genuinely horrified about what he’d done; what he’d started.

That wasn’t something Jon had ever doubted -- he didn’t believe Gerry would hurt him on purpose -- but to hear the man breathe it over and over again like a mantra... it soothed the raw emptiness in Jon’s chest -- slivers of despair turning to… nothing, nothing at all.

Until he really didn’t feel anything.

“Sometimes I kinda wonder if this is just a terrible idea all around,” Gerry said, holding both of Jon’s hands against his chest. Jon didn’t remember feeling him move or feeling Gerry move him, but he was lying down on the bed and Gerry faced him. “Me sticking around and you being so… vulnerable right now.”

Panic circled back to the surface and Jon clung to Gerry’s palms, gripping them hard. “D-don’t leave. I didn- It wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m not leaving you, Jon. I’d never- bloody hell, I’d never do that. I just…  I’ve not done the… being social thing for… ever? Can’t say I ever had a chance to before. And I keep just fucking it up.”

Before he could open his mouth and say something, Gerry continued. His knees touched Jon’s. “And yeah, I guess I saved your life a couple times, but that’s really no excuse for the way I keep hurting you. And- you should’ve told me to stop. I didn’t-”

“And then y-you made it better.”

“I don’t-” 

It was easy to wriggle out of Gerry’s grasp -- he hadn’t really been trying to hold him down -- and Jon lifted the tips of his fingers to Gerry’s lips, silencing him. “You did. You just… I’d never- had anyone do that before. I… I’m not okay, but I would be… less okay without you here.”

There was so much Jon could tell Gerry: that he alone had lightened the darkness of his prison and the burden of having to become a monster he despised; that instead of falling prey to utter terror, Gerry and his constant presence had given him hope and the strength to cling on to it. 

He could tell him all of that and it still wouldn’t be enough. Instead, Jon shook his head, leaning to speak against Gerry’s mouth. 

“Yours,” he murmured.

They kissed for a little while, although much shorter than Jon would’ve preferred. Because even as Gerry’s gripped the back of his head and their mouths crashed together, he tasted… something sour on the tip of his tongue. He scrambled back, grimacing.

“I’m- I um, I’m really sorry, I want to keep going but the taste...I've got shaving cream in my mouth.”

All of a sudden, Gerry burst out laughing and Jon was about to open his mouth and say that yes, that was entirely his fault when their hands -- rather, Gerry’s hands tangled around his. The entire bed seemed to shudder as he rolled closer. 

“I’m- Jesus. Me too!” He chuckled, sounding as if he was still in the throes of a shaving cream induced silliness. “I didn't want to say something and ruin the moment. It’s… it’s really gross actually.”

It was a good way of shattering the tension and sure, Jon couldn’t just forget what had happened, but this… it helped.

“We're so bad at this,” he mumbled, trying to wipe the drying tear-tracks off by rubbing his face on the bed sheets.

Maybe it was the sight of him contorting on the bed, maybe it was the soapy taste in his mouth, whatever it was, Gerry laughed again and Jon knew -- and Knew, too -- that it wasn’t directed at him. “Yeah we are, but we’ll figure it out,” he said, running his thumb under Jon’s eye, drawing his attention. When Jon turned in his direction, he finished: “Together.”

_ That’s right, together, _ Jon thought, slightly amazed that the Archivist hadn’t tried to interfere with this clear moment of weakness -- maybe it realised that Jon had Needed it the way it’d needed its statement.

Weak or not, he enjoyed the intimacy. Heat coiled in his lower belly and though he avoided kissing him again, Gerry ran his fingers all over his exposed upper body, and Jon shivered at the pleasant sensation that jolted through him. 

When he inhaled; when Gerry nuzzled his face, he could smell him -- not blood or dirt, or the artificial cleanliness of disinfectant, but leather and whatever body spray he’d worn today, something dark and poignant. Jon liked it, it suited him.

Then again, he couldn’t think of much he didn’t like about Gerry. Oh, he had it bad, didn’t he?

For a very long moment -- maybe a handful of them -- they stayed like that, just existing together in that Motel room. Jon would have fallen asleep like that -- even away from the hospital there was so much to recover from -- if he didn’t feel like his skin was drying… wrong. Besides, there was still shaving cream lathered all over his neck and he would get it all over the bed.

Jon sighed and felt the mattress move as he struggled to sit back up. “I think I'm ready to let you finish. I'm… not sure I have the bone structure to pull off the look I'm currently sporting,” he said, though not before forcing a little bit more mock-dejection in his voice than he needed to.

“Hmm.” Gerry hummed, sitting next to him, their legs touching. “I don’t know, you could probably pull off a neckbeard.”

The sheer horror that was that thought almost had Jon fake-throwing himself off the bed. He swung forward, catching himself in Gerry’s arms. “Good Lord! A neckbeard? I had no idea. Gerry, you finish what you started or-” 

It wasn’t quite a kiss, but Gerry pressed their lips together and he could feel the grin that curled in his mouth. When Gerry pulled back an inch, he heard it in his voice, too. “Or you’ll what?”

Jon couldn’t really match the playfulness, not really, but tried. “Hmm, I’m sure I’ll think of think of something,” he said, and closed the short distance between them to nibble on Gerry’s bottom lip.

He’d figure out a way of getting him back eventually.

 

\---

 

It wasn’t until his feet touched slippery asphalt on London’s Heathrow airport that Jon realised just how easy -- and honestly, how addictive -- using his compelling powers had become. Not only as a way of facilitating his and Gerry’s lives but simply for the… joy of it? Jon didn’t know. 

If it hadn’t been for the Archivist, Jon would’ve sat alone for the entirety of the nearly nine hour long journey and that… wasn’t something he was able or willing to cope with. 

Gerry hadn’t brought it up though it was obvious, from the way his grip had tensed over Jon’s for the majority of the flight that he wasn’t comfortable with it. That or simply the fact they were in a several-tonne heavy hunk of metal, floating in the middle of an ocean somewhere. It had very Vast-like connotations that Jon really, really didn’t want to think about.

It didn’t help they were both quiet. Gerry -- and Jon wasn’t only sure of it, he Knew it -- was still in pain from his encounter with Jared and there was nothing Jon could do about it. Nothing at all. Not only was Gerry sure to not want to talk about it, but listening wasn’t going to do anything -- even somehow killing or otherwise destroying Jared wouldn’t really fix it, would it? Revenge sounded good in his head but… no.

No it wouldn’t.

Outside was much warmer than Alberta and Jon shrugged off the coat Gerry had bought him as soon as they entered the airport proper. 

When his passport didn’t actually match his current figure he resorted to compelling the control officer to just let him through -- as well as making everyone that questioned Gerard’s presence believe he was his guide-human, or something. 

_ Thank you Hunt, for making me lose so much weight, _ Jon thought, not without bitterness and a heavy dose of sarcasm.  _ It is truly a wonderful gift.  _

Gerry didn’t seem to agree. He held on to Jon’s arm and as soon as they’d neared what Jon thought might be the arrival’s area, he pulled on him, jolting Jon back into awareness of his -- their situation. 

“You really won’t…” Gerry touched his forehead to Jon’s shoulder gently, probably trying not to draw too much attention to them. “I don’t want to tell you to stop, but compelling everyone in your way won’t… it’s probably easy to give in to the temptation, but let me handle things next time we need to, okay?”

All Jon wanted was to get into his bed -- or at least, a familiar bed in a familiar country -- and sleep for the rest of the week, with Gerry by his side, possibly cuddling him. He nodded, though the Archivist jolted in him, clearly annoyed with Gerry’s intervention.

“Buzzkill,” he whispered. It wasn’t even something he’d meant to say out loud, not Jon. But the word slipped out and he couldn’t exactly blame the Archivist either.

Either Gerry didn’t hear or he chose not to, because he ignored Jon and instead, led the both of them outside.

Rain came hard and fast, heavy drops splattering all over his wool jumper -- Gerry had told him it had a delightful maple-leaf pattern in red and white, warm tones. It slowly seeped through the fabric, making him shiver.

Gerry clung to him and Jon felt him remove his own coat to wrap it over his shoulders. It was only then that he spoke and Jon realised he’d been listening after all: “If you need a rush, have a cigarette, they’re healthier.”

“That’s not what you said last time I asked you for one,” Jon complained, holding both his palms out to catch the rain despite the chill that ran up his arms. There was something oddly freeing about being back home -- not  _ home _ ; he had no home to speak of, but back in England, at least.

“You were in the hospital, remember?”

It was true. Even now, he shouldn’t be smoking. Which, of course, didn’t mean Jon didn’t crave it. “I know what you’re trying to do,” Jon said. “And I do appreciate it, of course I do. But I’m not sure I can… not make it easier,” he admitted and felt the Archivist’s victory thrum in his veins.

Gerry squeezed him closer. “Oh Jon, I’m just... I’m here, whatever happens.”

Jon knew, of course, but it was still nice to be told again. 

“Should we go back to your place or-” 

He was interrupted by a very loud honking noise, one that couldn’t have come from anywhere but the road they were currently standing next to. Jon jumped, feeling his heart skip a beat in surprise. Next to him, Gerry almost did the same, and it was probably only his sight that kept him from making the both of them topple down in a startled heap.

Jon heard the telling click of a car door being unlocked and propped open, and a voice that sounded like nothing he’d ever heard before -- not foreign, not exactly, but he couldn’t place the accent, or the intonation. “Jonathan Sims yeah? You’re to come with me. We’ll be driving you to your flat,” it paused. “That’s what he said.”

Gerry stiffened and Jon leaned onto him. If he was to be honest -- which he was -- he didn’t really have to consider much to realise who “he” was or what he might want with him. Elias did have his fingers in every resource available, and the Archivist recognised his modus operandi immediately.

Which didn’t mean Jon was happy to just… obey.  _ Like cattle,  _ he thought. 

When he didn’t move, the -- he assumed it was a man, it sounded like one -- whistled. “Come on already, do you ya even know how much the fare in this fucking place is? Get movin’,” the man hissed. 

Jon did hesitate. Besides the last time someone had asked his name and invited him into a car… well, it hadn’t ended in his favour. But then, he felt something brush right up to his consciousness and -- it wasn’t nice. It was the exact opposite of nice.

“Jon I’m not sure-”  Jon cut him off, there was no way he could stop Elias from doing whatever he wanted him to do, was there? And Jon would much rather not have to deal with awful images trying to penetrate his mind.

Still, he had no choice. 

“Come on, Gerry,” Jon said, quietly adding a ‘please’ mouthed straight to Gerry’s ear. 

He was about to slide in the back seat of the car when the man’s voice rung again, carrying that same bone chilling ‘wrongness’ as before. “He didn’t say nothing about other passengers,” the man warned and Jon pulled back, standing up in the rain with Gerard holding him in his arms.

“Well I’m not going anywhere without Gerry. So if you expect me to get in there, you better hope there’s room for him.” It was angrier than the mild irritation Jon had been shooting for. However, the thought of leaving Gerry behind… it sent shivers running through him and a cold panic settling in his chest -- possibly irrational.

Instead of hearing the man speak again, or Gerry warning him about the likely trap they faced, Jon heard his phone ring, vibrating in the pocket of his trousers. 

He waited a moment and when Gerry shook his head against him he picked it up. Withheld number, Gerry told him even as Jon’s thumb slid across the familiar buttons, trying to figure out whether he should pick it up, or not.

In the end, he didn’t have a choice, not when the presence in his head became clearer -- more insistent. 

Jon pressed the phone to his ear, his voice slightly clipped by the tension in his muscles. “Hello?” 

“If you don’t get in the car within a minute you’ll be riding in the boot, Jon,” Elias’ voice came clearly only slightly distorted by the line and the pitter patter of rain all around them. “And I assure you, no one will stop him from taking you.”

It was loud enough that Gerry could probably hear Elias too. Jon wanted -- needed, maybe -- to hide. “I’m not going anywhere without him.”

Almost as if he was holding back unloading on him, Elias sighed. “Fine, for once I will allow you to keep your safety blanket with you. I’ve certainly warned you for long enough about this sort of thing. If you need Gerard Keay with you, so be it.” He paused. “Although you should know, he really won’t be around for much longer, so you should enjoy your time together.”

“I don’t really-”

“I will expect you in my office tomorrow morning to discuss our next move. Nine sharp, Jon,” Elias said and promptly hung up on him -- well, the both of them.

Against the side of his head, Gerry was whispering, almost inaudible through the noise of cars and the rain and people all around them. “He’s lying, trying to terrify you so the… so the thing in you can grow faster. Don’t let him.”

“I know, I know, I just-”

Pain, fear -- of loss -- anger... it all flooded him at once, jostling the Archivist and Elias presence out of place in his head. The emotion overwhelmed his every sense until even Gerry was so far away -- too far away -- and-

“You guys coming in or not?” The man in the car called, his voice was loud and rough enough that it broke through Jon’s inner monologue. “I ain’t got all the time in the world ya know?”

“Am I…?” Gerry asked from behind him. Jon didn’t need for him to finish to know exactly what he meant.

He had only about enough willpower to nod and crawl into one of the seats. His healing ankle wasn’t entirely happy about the way he was sitting and he waited for Gerry to follow his example before collapsing back in his arms. “I’m so tired,” Jon admitted, resting his head on Gerry’s chest. “I can’t-”

“I know, I know. It’ll be fine,” Gerry said, and in his defence, he did try to sound reassuring. But it was still… a lie, they both knew that. Maybe it would be fine one day, but today was definitely not that day.

The unspoken threat in Elias’ words burned a gaping hole in Jon’s chest, searing through what he Knew and what he doubted. Even if he could somehow stop him from endangering Gerry… what exactly did Elias know he didn’t? It was only his own lack of… power that kept him from challenging the avatar. 

He was in the middle of trying to figure out what -- if anything -- he could do to protect Gerry the way he’d been protected by him, when the car stopped, brakes screeching. 

Jon looked up -- not that he could see much, or anything at all aside from a mindless darkness and lighter colourful dots scattered in his cone of vision -- and felt Gerry’s arm tighten around him.

“Yer here lads,” the driver called out just in time for Jon to catch the doors unlock. “Go on, just make sure you’re in tomorrow, aye? He’d be very upset otherwise.”

_ Like I have to be told twice, _ Jon found himself thinking. He didn’t want to meet Elias. Not face to face; not without Gerry’s support. But he couldn’t avoid him either. Especially not after what he’d been told, and the lingering imagine that insisted on running through the forefront of his mind: a chessboard, pieces about to move, their paths premeditated and blood soaked. And eyes; so many eyes. It was a wonder he still couldn’t see.

“We should get out,” Gerry breathed softly against him. Jon agreed, though only in his head. 

He waited for Gerry to exit the vehicle -- their hands clinging together, the idea that this guy might take off as soon as Gerry left still lingering in his head-- before he let go and climbed out. 

Jon didn’t know where they were, at least not until Gerry nudged him forward and he came face to face with a door that -- after touching the doorknob -- he recognised as his flat’s main entrance.

“Wait this is-” He stopped, checked again, his fingers running over wet metal and glass. “This is actually my flat, I’m not- I’m-” 

_ Surprised? _ It was Elias voice, ringing in his head.  _ What did you think of me Jon? Poor, poor thing, I would never do that to you. Not again. _ And he heard him laugh, that too smooth, endearing pitch. 

Then it turned into Gerry, his touch slightly frantic as he shook him back to attention. “I’m not sure where we are, do you know where you’d leave your keys, because you didn’t have any when I found you.” 

“Yes, I just… I didn’t expect him not to take me somewhere else,” Jon admitted. It was probably dumb, he hadn’t left his keys out to dry or anything, but he Knew where they’d be. He knelt down beside the door, gently feeling his way across a roughly cemented wall until he came to a little nook. His fingers dipped into what he Knew was a dark area in the otherwise white coloured building, and he found them -- well, found it. There was only one key left there. 

He took the metal key and stood, slightly dazed with the effort it’d taken him to See it. “Here.” Jon held it out as he swayed in place. “I’m- wow, Christ.” 

“You need to rest.” Gerry helped him not fall back down. “And honestly? So do I. I hope you got your bed ready in there, Jon.” 

Jon could barely remember the state of his flat. How long had it been since he’d last stepped in it? Many, many months. There was probably clean bedding in a wardrobe somewhere, but besides that, he didn’t know. A very large part of him didn’t even want to check the fridge -- nothing good could come out of that. Nothing but mouldy lettuce and rotten eggs from Lord knows when.

Thankfully the lift wasn’t broken -- as it often happened in his building -- and Jon wasn’t forced to brave the stairs. Before too long the two of them had made it into his bedroom, lounging quietly on a bed slightly too small for them. 

“Not what you expected?” The only thing keeping Jon from falling asleep were the thoughts Elias had planted in his brain: Gerry gone -- dead or worse; splayed open in the snow, fluid leaking from his skull -- and Jon alone in the darkness, with only the Archivist’s voice as company. 

“I like it… it’s uh, a bit bare I guess?” Gerry said, his shoulder touching Jon’s. “I-” He paused. “I couldn’t have gone back there. I never told you what happened with my mum- maybe one day- but I just… I wanted to thank you. For letting me stay here.”

What had Gerry thought? That he would drop him as soon as they landed in London?  _ Maybe you should have. _

Jon forced himself to ignore the thoughts he knew weren’t really  _ his _ , and to focus on Gerry instead. “You’re welcome to redecorate if you want, it’s not like I can- I wouldn’t mind even if I  _ could  _ see it,” Jon corrected himself. “Unless you start playing very loud music when I’m trying to sleep, I’m fine with it.”

At that, Gerry laughed, though it was an oddly… subdued sound, quieter than anything Jon had heard from him back in Canada. “Only when you’re not trying to sleep, gotcha.”

It wasn’t funny. If anything, the strain of having to chuckle back at Gerry only made it worse. It really wasn’t funny at all. He didn’t care -- or mind -- the music. There were so much bigger worries swimming in his head, engulfing everything else in terror and panic.

Jon opened his mouth, tried to work around the lump in his throat. “Gerry, what happened with Elias, I don’t believe him at all, you’re not-”

“I’m not going anywhere, whether he believes it or not. I’ve made it through worse things than another avatar.” Jon heard between the lines, though he didn’t have to. “I’m not leaving you, Jon. You don’t have to worry about that.”

It was just another lie, Gerry couldn’t Know the danger Elias posed the same way Jon did. And yet, he let himself be lulled by the words; let Gerry wrap himself around him, pinning him to the bed, arms over his hips and hair splashed all over his chest. Jon let himself deflate, sagging back onto the mattress. 

“Are you coming with me tomorrow?” Jon asked, then gasped when Gerry kissed the tip of his nose. 

“To the institute? If you want me then yeah, I will. Otherwise… there’s a lot to be done here. Not that I’m trying to make you feel bad about your own home or anything. There’s just… a lot of dust. Reminds me of- ugh, never mind.”

“Bad memories?”

“Hmmm,” Gerry mumbled against his skin. One of his legs slipped between Jon’s and they rested there, thoroughly entangled. “I like it here, that’s what I meant to say. Guess I got kinda sidetracked.”

“It’s been a while since I spent time here,” Jon said. “I… don’t know if I would call it my home.” He hadn’t, before. He’d have been glad to never see his flat again -- and then… well, Gerry had happened. “But since you’re here, that does make it the most likely place.” 

Jon felt Gerry smile against his jaw; felt it widen when he reached to stroke the top of Gerry’s head, weaving his fingers into his thick mane of hair.

“Are you telling me I’m home to you, Jon? Because that’s…”

“Don’t.”

Gerry didn’t. “Okay.” He lifted his head, placed a chaste kiss to Jon’s lips, then finally finished, “Home. I like it.”

“Me too.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon meets with Elias.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there's some mild sexual content in the end of this chapter.

“That will be all,” Elias said, tapping fingers over his desk in a way he knew --  _ had  _ to know -- that Jon found intensely uncomfortable. “I can only hope you will have the good sense to accept my help and advice before you deal with the Stranger. It would be a shame to have to burn your bridges afterwards.”

Jon bit down on the tip of his tongue to keep himself from making a frustrated noise. He didn't need his sight to See the long, borderline malicious smirk that moved on Elias face every time he spoke. He didn’t need the Archivist for that.

He also didn't need to read between the lines to Know he was talking about Gerry -- his safety blanket as Elias had often repeated during their conversation. Well, conversation wasn't really the way Jon would describe his past hour. An interrogation, perhaps. 

“I’m sure I will,” Jon reply was clipped short, wound tight with the effort it took to keep civil to Elias’ face.   


Especially when his thoughts insisted on turning utterly vile in the man’s presence. Did he want Elias dead? No, that wouldn’t be far too simple -- far too painless for the things he’d done to Jon -- and for the things he hadn’t done to him, too.

“Of course not,” Elias said, as smooth as though he  _ hadn’t  _ just peeked inside Jon’s head. “I’m sure even you can muster more creativity than that.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Jon finally snapped, stretching his arms in front of him. He’d clung to that chair for the best part of an hour and his entire body ached. “I’m not the clueless Archivist you sent away months ago.”

He’d regretted insisting Gerry should stay away from the Institute the moment he noticed Tim was the one waiting for him at the door. It was hardly ideal and Jon would’ve preferred not to see him -- or Martin, or anyone else -- today while he was still so… weak, but then again, that had been Elias’ idea of a joke and Jon hadn’t laughed when Elias told him about it.

“Or what? You’re correct in your assumption. You are not the Archivist I sent away and I’m impressed you’ve developed quick enough that you’re actually trying to threaten me.” Elias sounded both impressed and thoroughly amused, like the idea Jon could ever cause him harm was too funny not to comment on.

“It’s not a threat,” Jon hissed as he stood. “Just leave me and him alone.” 

“Of course, Jon. As long as you continue to do your job, you have nothing to worry about from me.”

Gerry on the other hand...

Jon huffed. His chair scraped the carpet a little harder than he had to. He didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of braving the corridors alone, but between that and being dragged around by Tim, his choice was very, very clear. 

_ Besides, it’s not like you couldn’t really see where you’re going, if you wanted, _ he told himself, or the Archivist told him, whichever.

If anything, his “meeting” with Elias really had been an eye-opener. Literally. According to Elias, he should soon be able to discern and See within others’ minds -- and some objects, too -- without ever leaving his body. ‘Like watching a movie, except your seat includes being able to discern the character’s emotions and thoughts as well,’ Elias had told him. ‘Without ever leaving your body or your mind vulnerable. You have nothing to worry about.’

It had begged the question: why make him come all the way to the institute when Elias was perfectly capable of relaying whatever information he wanted to from afar. And Elias’ answer had been hardly satisfying; something about how the Archivist preferred this institute, how his powers would grow even faster in here. It was true, he’d felt the tension in him dissipate as soon as he’d entered the place and yet… it wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to hear.

Jon hadn’t tried his new ability yet and he wouldn’t. Not without first asking Gerry about it and its consequences. But the choice was there and it was a burning itch under his skin.

He turned away from Elias, feeling his way towards the door and was about to pull it open when Elias voice rung again -- this time not echoing in the small room, but directly in his mind. 

_ Remember what I’ve told you already, Jon _ . _ It’s better to rid yourself of your weakness before others do it for you, or worse. _

It wasn’t a threat on Elias’ part -- not all of it. It was almost absurd to consider it: how the words alone sounded ambiguous, yet Jon knew exactly what Elias meant -- the Knowledge had been injected directly inside of him.

“I’ll think about it,” Jon forced himself to reply, his fist clenching around the metal doorknob so tightly he was half surprised it didn’t snap off when he pulled. He was more than ready to leave that hellish office.

And to leave Elias behind.

At least that was what Jon told himself. It that was easier to bear than the rest of his thoughts:  _ Elias can see me whenever he wants, I’ll never be free of him _ . And,  _ You’re right. You can run and it’ll never be far enough. _

Jon went to leave, slowly stumbling his way down a maze of small corridors when he realised that there was something else he needed to do. Elias had brought it up before he'd even left his flat and, well -- Jon wasn’t sure how Martin had gotten involved with Jared Hopworth or how Elias had simply pierced through Gerry’s defences and Known he had those bones, and he hadn't asked. 

Concern -- for Martin and whatever had happened during his absence -- slowly grew in his chest, turning into a physical sensation that burned in the pit of his stomach the longer he waited. 

The reception was…  Jon couldn’t see it. 

He curled up in one the armchairs, trying to avoid drawing attention to himself. It wasn't a complete failure -- most people seemed to just walk past, ignoring him, and he only had to field awkward questions once or twice. Still, somewhere in the jacket Gerry had let him borrow was his phone, and the longer Jon waited, the more he had the urge to call Gerry and lose himself in his voice. 

And then a very familiar presence flooded the room and--

Well, Martin was… Martin. Jon needed no words to recognise him, or the arms that wrapped themselves around him.

Jon wasn’t comfortable being hugged -- or at the very least, it quickly became apparent to him that he wasn’t comfortable being around anyone other than Gerry -- but Martin gave him no choice, holding him until Jon scowled and stiffly moved away.

“I missed you,” Martin mumbled and Jon didn’t need to See to imagine the look on his face: a bashful smile and a glint of adoration in his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re alright. I- I was Tim okay before? He seemed a bit off and I hope he didn’t scare you and-”

“Martin.” Jon held one arm in front of him, one palm flat as a way of putting a little distance between them. “I’m… I’m alright,” Jon admitted. He wasn't fine, he wasn't good, but he was alright. For now. “And Tim is Tim, I’m not sure what else to tell you. Did something happen?” Was Tim okay? How was Jon meant to answer that? 

Jon heard Martin shift on his feet, heard him exhale. “He, um, he seemed a bit off when he left, so…”

“He seemed perfectly fine when I last saw-” Jon paused, correcting himself, “When I last met him.” It was hard to tell if Tim had been fine or not, considering the fact this was Tim they were talking about, but he'd seemed… reasonably normal, whatever that meant. 

“Okay uh, I just…” 

“You're worried about him,” Jon said, rather flatly. He didn't think he'd ever understand Martin. Even momentarily sharing a mind hadn't helped. 

“Of course I am! I uh, I know, I know what you're thinking, but he's…” Jon thought he heard Martin shake his head, breath hitching. “I care about him and he's been having a hard time, we uh, we all have, but now you're back. I- I'm really glad you're back, Jon.” And I'm sorry, about what happened to you, I really am, Jon heard that too in the tone of Martin’s voice.

Jon wasn't sure he was glad to be back, or even if he was back at all -- not in the sense Martin had meant the words. 

In fact, he didn't have it in him to tell Martin that nothing would ever be like when he'd first assumed his post. Or that, if Tim was caught up with one of the powers, there was nothing Jon could do about that. He didn't even have it in him to warn Martin about Jared -- especially not if it might somehow come back to bite him and Gerry. 

How cruel was that? He'd sacrifice Tim and Martin and Melanie and Basira, all for Gerry. Not happily; not without any guilt; not without hating himself in the end, but he'd still do it. 

_ And for me _ , the Archivist remarked, a statement with which Jon was inclined to agree. Three months earlier he wouldn't have questioned which one of them was the monster. Now? Well, he knew better than to ask. 

A trickle of heat slipped down the back of his throat and Jon noticed, a moment later, that the pressure he felt on his shoulder was Martin's hand, squeezing him. It was… not reassuring, but still nice. 

“I'm glad to be back, too,” Jon lied. He wasn't nearly as smooth as Elias, his voice too raspy to really sell it. He blamed Martin for not confronting him. “Did Elias tell you to meet me here?” 

When Martin jumped back slightly, Jon felt it in the way his fingers closed over his shoulder. “Oh yes! Sorry, I'd almost forgotten. He said you had something for me? He didn't tell me what, though.”

It was doubtful Elias had actually told Martin anything, though if he couldn't tell the difference between a psychical suggestion and real words… Jon wasn't about to tell him, either. In a way, keeping people in the dark, ignorant of his skills, it made his job easier. 

Even if that meant Martin wasn't knowingly involved with Jared and -- no, he had to protect himself first. 

Good job, Jon. 

“If he didn't, then I'm not sure it's my place to tell you.”

Jon dug into one of the inner pockets of Gerry’s coat and carefully withdrew a little bag. It was made of some sort of fabric, satin or silk, which made the most awful noise every time Jon brushed it. Inside were Jared's spinal bones -- some of them, anyway. He held them out to Martin, the tiny package sitting in the flat of his palm, vibrating softly.

“Um, I mean, should I just -- I don't know If I uh, should?”

Jon nodded. “Just treat it like something you would find bound to artifact storage and you'll be fine, Martin,” he said with a sigh, still holding the bones in his hand. 

They moved sometimes, the bones. 

There had been a moment, back while he and Gerry still waited to leave Canada, when Jon had almost thrown them out of their luggage because of all the rattling -- it’d been all he could hear, all he’d been able to focus on, like a terribly annoying beacon. Honestly, they had been lucky to make it through security without alerting anyone. Though really, all things considered, some human bones were the least of their worries.

Martin gave him a wry, unsure smile. Jon Knew its shape without looking. “Um, if you're sure. Should I take them down? I don't think there's anyone in storage -- I'm not sure…”

Jon wasn't, either. Not before he caught the flash of something angry and violent in his mind and -- oh. Oh no. He inhaled, squeezing his eyes shut, aware that Martin couldn’t see them through the sunglasses.

“No, there's somewhere else these are needed, I…” Elias had slipped him an address and Jon hadn't even noticed. He nearly stumbled, waiting for Martin to take the bones from his hand. “Martin,” Jon said as sharply as he could manage without betraying the emotions that ran through him, his lips curling down. “Take it. ”

“ I… Oh, okay.” 

Martin hesitated for a second, then snatched them quickly from Jon's hand. It was a relief not to have to hold those things anymore and he could finally dig back into the same pocket to retrieve… yes, that was small square of paper with -- Jon Knew -- his own handwriting on it.  Detailed instructions and an address he didn't, and couldn't, have known he'd written. 

“You will need this as well. It's not far, but you should hurry, just to be sure,” Jon said and it wasn't his voice; his diction; the sentences felt wrong in his mouth. “There is someone waiting for them.”

If Martin noticed this was the Archivist wrestling control, he didn’t bring it up. 

“I uh - I'm not sure what you mean… hurry where?”

There was a short second during which Jon -- Jon again -- considered just turning away; just ignoring whatever Elias was about to put Martin through and walking away from it all. He didn't. Not when the fear of Elias’ words was still fresh in his mind. 

_ Security blanket. Weakness _ . _ Get rid of him. _ He heard, over and over. 

Jon motioned down with his head to the paper. “The address,” he said, barely a whisper. There were other people in the room and even then it was as if he and Martin were in an isolated bubble of air -- completely ignored by the rest of the world. “Take the bones to this address and ask for Tim.” How did he -- Jon stifled a yelp.

“Bones?” Martin was startlingly loud, too close to him, and Jon almost jumped back. “I mean, it- they feel warm, r-really warm. Is that normal? Feels like touching a-”

“Person? Skin?” Jon finished for him, a dead weight settling in his chest. “I know.”

“Is t-that why I need to take them - is someone missing their own -- Jesus, I n-never thought...” Martin took the paper, read it between shaky breaths, too low and mumbly for Jon to understand. “This isn't too far, are you sure I uh, have to-? I-is Tim…? Are you going to come with me?”

“I really can’t.” Well, Jon could, and it would be a terrible decision, especially after what Gerry had gone through to put the distance between themselves and Jared. “ I’m sure Tim is fine. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” It wouldn’t, it was just another lie and that... it hurt to say it, it really did. Jon didn’t want Martin to suffer, but there was nothing he could do about that.

Jon was aware of the way Martin’s hand trembled when he touched fingers to his arm, it made him want to cry out. “I-I’m just glad you’re back here,” he said. “I um, I think I should get going then. I don’t want- I’m just… Tim.” Martin squeezed Jon’s hand, like it meant the world to him. “I’ll see you later, Jon.” 

Somehow, Jon didn’t think that’d happen.

The bubble burst as soon as Martin stepped away. It wasn’t his doing -- though Jon didn’t know for sure, but the Archivist was quiet and that was usually enough of an answer -- and he was suddenly hit, washed over, with a volume of  _ noise _ that near deafened him. The Institute wasn’t loud but it could be busy and this was just one of these days. 

Nothing unusual. Besides, no one else knew or cared about the grief of knowing he might have just sent one -- or two -- of his assistants to a fate worse than death. There was only a vague sense of satisfaction, though whether Elias’ or the Archivist’s, Jon couldn’t tell.

Bile rose up into his throat and Jon bit back a choked sob. 

And no one looked at him -- if they did, they said nothing. Jon was aware of the scattered pinprick of presences around him, and he reached out for none of them.

_ There’s nothing else I can do here. Nothing that I can’t do from back home _ , he thought and there was a bitter chuckle on the tip of his tongue.  _ Home. Funny how some things can change without me ever wanting them to.  _

_ I’m not just going to give him up,  _ he added, just to feel the idea coalesce in his mind. 

Jon left the building as quickly as he could manage. He was hyper- aware of the flux of people all moving around him and of the way their presences left behind… trails -- for the lack of a better word. They were semi-visible when he closed his eyes, like wisps of clouds, and they vanished as soon as he set his mind on them. 

Jon had no time to dwell on them.

Outside wasn’t much better, though he really hadn’t expected anything else from mid-morning London. The streets were packed and he nearly got knocked over a couple times while standing still. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how he managed to avoid outright collision with… well, anything. All he knew was that when he finally managed to hail a cab, he nearly collapsed into the back seat, completely worn out.

 

\---

 

The inside of Jon’s flat was quiet. Suspiciously so. 

That was the very first thing he noticed, sound having become so much more important than sight during the past months. The second was that the lights were out. Jon didn’t need to see this, he Knew it. The third… well, it wasn’t a knowledge as much as the awareness that unless he reined in on his emotions, he was going to panic. And when he panicked he was going to break. And if something had actually happened, he wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it.

Jon forced himself to stop; to just stop thinking -- overthinking everything. It was hard... blood thrummed too fast in his veins and his skin tingled and that… it hurt. He felt himself shudder and held out one arm towards the wall to steady himself. It was colder than he remembered when he’d left earlier, though if that was the temperature of the terror gripping his chest, Jon didn’t know.

Nothing moved in the hallway, of that, he was absolutely certain. He inhaled and exhaled several several lungfuls of air in a row, focusing on stretching his mind to See and --   


“Gerry,” Jon squeaked, wishing he could move faster than his wobbly legs carried him.

His heart beat wildly, so fast that it effectively negated the silence, the sound echoing in the back of his skull. It was all Jon could hear even as he stumbled down the length of the flat, past the kitchen and into his small bedroom. When he kneed open the door that led to his single bathroom, it was so loud he thought it might make him hurl. 

“Gerry,” he called again, trying not to notice the nausea that coiled in his belly.

He felt sick all of a sudden and pressed one hand up to his mouth in shock. Because where Gerry’s presence had always been… nonexistent -- shrouded away from the Archivist’s piercing gaze since the’d met in Canada -- it was… well, Jon could see him now. Not with pictures, not with his real eyes: he couldn’t see Gerry as he curled on the cold bathroom tile, but he could touch his mind, wide open and vulnerable and he knew exactly what had happened to him.

Elias.

Jon didn’t care about the sharp jolt of pain that ran up his legs when his knees hit the floor, or the way his shins and his thighs throbbed when he sat back. He ignored the Archivist’s warnings in his head and shortly after, the entire world fell away. Until there was only Gerry and himself left in the dark; until only the dim brightness of Gerry’s presence illuminated them, warm and… still. That was what worried Jon the most: Gerry didn’t feel alive, not the way everyone else did. The spark was… gone, or mostly gone.

“Gerry, please,” Jon tried, carefully touching the tips of his fingers against Gerry’s face, brushing them over his lips. He was still breathing, Jon was thankful for that. “I’m here, I- I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m here.”

Jon hugged him, then. He wasn’t sure what else he could do, and when he wrapped his arms around Gerry’s chest, he thought he felt him relax. It was more than he could’ve hoped for. He rested his face against Gerry’s, whispering directly in his ear.

“Please. I can’t- I can’t do this without you.” Jon didn’t laugh, but the admission was darkly amusing, “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do without you. I- I… I just, I love you, I think.”

_ If you want him back so badly, touch him,  _ he heard through the tendrils of agony that penetrated his head, and the violent rhythm of his heartbeat, tempo all wrong. 

He didn't know what it meant, not at first.  _ What? _

_ Touch him,  _ the Archivist repeated.  _ Witness his pain, record it and take it from him. Then he will return. Maybe. It’s your only hope right now. _

Those weren’t the reassuring, hope-filled thoughts he’d wanted, but they were still better than doing nothing at all. Closing his eyes, Jon focused on the light streaming from Gerry’s body. It wasn’t real light, it was an approximation of… well… Jon didn’t know, but it was the only way his brain could really understand what he experienced. 

Carefully -- instilled with the fear that either the Archivist or Elias might take control of his body for themselves -- Jon… sunk into Gerry’s head. Again, none of it made sense. It couldn’t. It wasn’t really happening. When he touched Gerry, melding into him… he wasn’t really doing anything. Jon wasn’t even sure he would be able to do this -- not to this degree of intimacy -- if he weren’t holding Gerry in his arms.

The difference between their minds was immediate, though. 

“Come on, just show me,” he muttered to himself, his voice echoing through layers and layers of space that wasn’t really space, like staring at the sky from beneath the waves. “Just show me,  _ please _ , Gerry.”

He felt Gerry’s pain clearly. It blanketed him, breaching the gaps in his consciousness and drawing him closer. Even then, it wasn’t as excruciating as he would’ve imagined -- it wasn’t nearly bad enough to shatter Gerry so completely. And he  _ had  _ been broken. His thoughts disjointed, the slivers of them duller than Jon had expected.

It made no sense -- even Jon’s mind refused to cooperate in Knowing Gerry’s. 

Jon didn’t understand what he was Seeing, not until he realised this wasn’t Gerry’s pain -- at least not in the sense he’d been actually hurt by it -- this was Gerry Seeing Jon’s own…

“Good Lord,” Jon heard himself hiss from afar. “This isn’t your fault. You don’t have to dwell on it.” But of course, these memories -- whoever or whatever they had originally belonged to, Jon didn’t know -- were branded inside Gerry’s mind, and that was its own kind of hell, wasn’t it?

With the ounce of awareness he tried to keep locked in his body, Jon tilted his head, pressing his lips to Gerry’s. His skin wasn’t warm or cold, Jon couldn’t feel any of it, he could only Know he’d moved and the sound of his -- of Gerry’s -- coat moving with him.

Right. 

Jon didn’t close his eyes, there was no reason to do that; he had no eyes in his mind -- or maybe he had too many, whichever. He wasn't gentle, either. At least, it didn’t seem like being gentle would make this any easier. It hadn’t worked so far, and Jon was pretty sure Elias hadn’t been merciful or considerate or at all gentle with Gerry. 

It was that subcurrent of fiery stubbornness that really did it. He dove towards the core of Gerry’s being and forced his consciousness to wield the memories back to him, and he saw…

Many things. None of which were good.

Jon saw himself, of course he did, through the lenses of a creature far too twisted to recognise as ever having been human, or even as ever having been an animal. No, this was something else. Something larger than life, confined to shell of a body. The Hunt’s avatar? Carla? Jon didn’t know; he didn’t want to know. This wasn’t why he watched.

Next to him was Gerry, staring out at the prone body that was Jon hanging from his wrists, bruises blossoming all over his bare chest. He didn’t seem perturbed -- or otherwise aware -- of Jon’s presence at all. No. The way Jon saw him was… well, it was how Gerard saw himself: long dark hair, lighter at the roots, eyes wide, his face slightly flushed with… fear, perhaps? 

_ I’m here. I’m here with you, _ Jon tried to push the thought in Gerry’s direction.  _ I’m not leaving you.  _

There was no reaction, and for a while Jon could do nothing but watch Gerard watch  _ him  _ be tortured. It wasn’t until the scene changed that Jon realised this wasn’t even his torture. It was a nightmare, concocted by Elias to hurt Gerry the most. He saw own body ripple away and reappear. Only this time, instead of the mottled grey clothes he knew he’d worn, Jon was completely naked. His limbs looked broken and out of place, and blood coated most of his skin and the walls of his cell.

It wasn’t real, it had never been.

Jon was more forceful, slamming his mind onto Gerry’s.  _ This never happened. I’m still here! How can you believe what you’re seeing when I’m standing right here? _

His anger lasted only a moment and it wasn’t even directed at Gerry -- he should have never left him alone, not when Elias could just do… this. But it was what finally drew a reaction out of him; what seemed to snap him from the near-catatonic state in which he watched Jon.

_ Jon? _

_ Christ, _ Jon had no contact with his actual body and he still felt himself deflate, relief rushing through him. _ I thought- I thought I’d lost you there.  _

_ We are- oh, I remember. Well, sorta.  _ Gerry’s eyes -- the impression of his eyes -- flickered in Jon’s direction, then back at the corpse on the floor.  _ You shouldn’t be here, but uh, I’m not complaining, I’m really not complaining. I’d almost forgotten you weren’t… _ Gerry trailed off and though the scene didn’t immediately fall away, it lost some of... whatever had made it look real.

It was uncanny valley levels of creepy, but not particularly menacing. In fact, the entirety of the fake memory quickly fell apart in a way that was almost laughably bad: cheap and plastic, the colours distorted. What had been Jon’s body looked rubbery, the blood far too bright.

_ I’m not dead. Not yet, at any rate. I thought- I thought you were.  _ Jon admitted. _ I didn’t even know if I would find you still here. I was… Terrified. I didn’t think there was anything I could do to save you. And these things…  _ These weren’t all things Jon had wanted to tell Gerry, but their minds were still linked and he had no way to avoid it.

_ It happened shortly after you left, I think. Kinda hard to remember now, while we’re still in here. Time passes… uh, it’s difficult, you know what I mean. Feels like a year I’ve just spent looking through these… memories, I guess.  _

_ That wasn’t real. _

_ I know that now,  _ Gerry thought and Jon felt his mild pleasure against him. Not at what he’d witnessed, at the fact not all of it had really happened.  _ Before you arrived, I uh, I didn’t really have a chance to think. I just saw these things and I couldn’t- I couldn't stop it. I never had this happen, it shouldn’t be possible, but- _

_ It was Elias. I’m not sure what he isn’t capable of, these days. _

Somewhere else, closer to the surface, Jon heard the Archivist’s mirthful, cruel laughter echo in his ears. If it had any snippets of wisdom for Jon, it seemed to decide not to share them this time.

_ I know… I recognised his touch. I’ve felt it once before, a long time ago, before I clued up a bit. I thought I could-  _ Even in his head, Gerry somehow managed to convey a sigh.  _ I thought I could resist him. Pretty much that. I was stupid as fuck and probably made it easier for him to plant all of this in me. Not that it really… changes what you went through. _

_ It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t cause any of it, he did. _

Jon could just about see the waves of Gerry’s guilt taking a physical form, lacing his every thought. It was strange to recognise what Gerry didn’t want to say but couldn’t help to feel. It was, Jon thought, a bit like reading his mind, except he hadn’t wanted to know; he hadn’t consciously tried to reach towards Gerry’s guilt. He hadn’t wanted to intrude.

Well, at least it meant Jon could comfort his fears.  _ You couldn’t have known what the Hunt did. You tried for so long and you finally got to me, any longer and I would have died. You saved me That’s what you did. Not-  _ He stopped, gathered some of his will and gestured -- without his own arms or hands -- to the fading background.  _ Not this.  _

_ And if I’d just been- _

Jon wasn’t sure what he did or how he did it, only that one moment they were right there and the next… they were still right there, but closer, tangled together. 

_ It wasn’t your fault! Without you I would’ve died, more than once. I owe you my life - the thing inside me owes you  _ **_its_ ** _ life. And believe me, it knows that, as do I.  _ It was difficult to convey what he meant when Gerry was him and he was Gerry and their feelings bled into one another, but Jon still tried.  _ I don’t know if you heard me, before- I don’t think you did. I don’t know what-- _

Gerry interrupted him.  _ Jon. You don’t have to tell me here. _

It took Jon a moment to remember he still cradled Gerry’s face and held the man in his arms… on the bathroom floor. Inside Gerry’s head, he felt neither the ache of his stiff muscles, nor the cold. Their pain was of a different type altogether; on a different level. 

_ You don’t know how to leave?  _ That was Gerry, reading his mind.  _ That’s-  _ He imitated a laugh.  _ I’m sorry that’s just pretty funny to me right now. Okay, okay. I uh, I guess I could try to push you away but I’m not sure that’s going to work right now. So, just follow me? _

Jon didn’t understand what Gerry meant until he moved, or shifted, or teleported away, for all that he couldn’t describe what happened. It wasn’t any kind of motion, it wasn’t anything. It was a sense of a sense, vague and unclear and Jon had no idea how to follow it.

_ Come on Jon. _

He felt the thought come from further away, muffled by distance. Then something -- someone tugged at him.

There was a moment in which Jon thought he might get left behind, lost at the epicentre of Gerry’s mind, the part of him that made him Jon gone forever. It was just as he came to this terrifying conclusion that he felt himself sink back into his body. Or his body sink into him, for all the pain that came crashing back. 

Jon was suddenly sharply aware of the the way he'd toppled forward, away from Gerry.  One of his wrists was definitely bent funny, and when he tried to sit up, there was fierce jolt of electricity that shot up his forearm and into his shoulder. 

He heard a groan and couldn't quite tell if that was himself or Gerry. It rung in his ears as he collapsed, his arms and legs and knees unable to support any of his weight. Beside him, Gerry’s presence stirred as his consciousness resurfaced. 

“My head is killing me,” Gerry was saying. Jon didn't have any reason to doubt him. His head was… surprisingly fine. The rest of him? Not so much. “Jon, oh, are you- are you okay?”

“I'll probably live,” Jon muttered, shuffling on his side, turning in the direction of Gerry's voice. “If not, well it was still worth it. ”

That seemed to reward him with a quiet chuckle. Jon half-smiled at the sound. “Remind me, are you always so dramatic or only after shacking up in my mind? Is this some sort of feedback effect?” 

“Pretty much,” Jon replied, lifting his aching wrist off the floor and pressing it against his chest. “Maybe you didn't notice it before, but it has always been here.” Besides, it was better to focus on being mildly amusing than the searing pain in his joints or the tightness the squeezed the air from his lungs. 

Gerry seemed to get it and Jon didn't know what he'd done to deserve him. “I like it,” he said, helping lift Jon's torso so that they could rest together. More quietly, he added, “Are you going to be okay? It has to be pretty rough seeing those things after whatever he wanted with you.”

Jon had almost forgotten about his meeting; had almost forgotten he might have sent Martin to die and that Tim might be dead already. His breath died in his throat and he gasped like a fish. 

“Jon?” Gerry didn't shake him -- Jon was thankful -- but he felt his hands curl a bit harder around him. “Are you- okay we need to get you to the bed, this is just really cold and uncomfortable, even for me. “

Jon wanted to agree, but he couldn't -- didn't know  _ how  _ to stop thinking about what he'd done. At least you've helped Gerry, he thought. At least there’s one person in the whole world whose life wasn't completely ruined by your touch. At least -- he was forced to stop when Gerry grunted against his face as he lifted him. Jon's legs swung free while most of his chest was tucked against Gerry’s.

It was a bit like when he'd been carried through the forest, only the sensation was much shorter lived. 

“Not complaining but you're heavy, fuck,” he said. When Jon tried to make a disgruntled noise, he finished, “Pretty sure that's a great thing considering what you went through, but I'm still glad the bed is right here.”

Gerry was gentler than he needed to, carefully lowering Jon's arse on the mattress before dropping his shoulders and his knees down. A mountain of down pillows were shoved behind his neck and around his limbs and the change made it significantly easier for Jon to talk. 

“It wasn't your fault,” was the first thing Jon said when he finally manage a semblance of coherence. “I'm just… I'm sorry you had to see that.”

“Like I'm not sorry you had to go through that?” Gerry squeezed his hand, their fingers touching. “I told you, I was dumb. Overconfident, and I paid the price for it.”

“Hmm.” Jon wasn't sure he agreed. “Elias knew you… how you're capable of defending yourself. I think he's always been able to do this but never had a reason to. Not until now… he needed something to threaten me with. 

“And he knew I'd never fold if he tried to hurt me directly,” Gerry finished. “Besides, that's not even his style. I remember what you said about the pipe murder, but he's more of chess player to me.”

It was laughable really. Jon felt the urge tickle his throat. It wasn't funny, it was ridiculous and the exact opposite of funny. And the more he thought about it, the more he knew he had to stop holding Elias in his thoughts and handing him the tools to hurt them. 

The Archivist was nearly silent, swirling quietly in the background. Jon still heard it twist and hum in way that was nearly soothing. 

Jon’s eyes slid shut and he pushed Elias, the thought or him, away. “... still not your fault.” 

He heard Gerry huff next to him, not with anger or even annoyance -- no, this was something else. “Fine, have it your way. It wasn't my fault.” 

“Exactly,” Jon mumbled. “You knew I was right from the beginning.” 

And it was so much easier to let the pain slip out and roll away and pretend it was all fine -- or that it would all be fine as soon as he could catch some rest. Or a lot of rest. 

“Nap?”

Jon nodded. There was no way to tell what time it was, probably still morning, and he felt like sleeping for the rest of the day. He blinked like that might keep the drowsiness away. It didn't. 

“Yeah, you look exhausted, I… probably do too, to be honest. I'm desperate for a shower, though,” Gerry said. Under the exhaustion and the pretense of strength -- for both of them -- Jon couldn't help but notice Gerry’s apprehension… his fear, of loss? Then it clicked: he didn't want to leave Jon. 

_ Crutch. Security blanket. _ It wasn't only Jon for which these were true. Somehow, Jon saw how much Gerry needed him and it…

“I should be the one clinging to you. I thought you were dead or…” Gone, or much worse, Jon didn't say. “I'll be fine while you take a shower.” He tried to sound reassuring and missed the mark by quite a few notes. Worry and tension gripping him -- not for himself, not this time. 

“I'm not going right now so I guess you'll have to put up with me kinda smelling.”  _ I want to remember you're still alive. I need this or I'm going to lose my mind all over again. _ Those were Gerry’s thoughts, his mind still wide open, brushing Jon's. 

Gerry stroked his hand over Jon's collarbone, curling fingers beneath the edges of his shirt; palms dipping under the fabric to caress top of Jon's chest. It reminded Jon -- though not for any reason in particular -- that he'd somehow lost the coat on the tiny journey from the bathroom to the bedroom. 

“I'm sure I've had a lot worse than a stinky goth trying to hug me,” Jon pointed out as flatly as he could manage. It wasn’t a very successful endeavour.

He bit down a moan when Gerry tugged harder on the shirt, his nails scraping tender skin. It was… not at all painful. In fact, its sharpness was beautiful and so, so nice. It worked to erase Jon's pain. And for a little while, all he could feel, all he could remember, his every memories were coloured with Gerry's presence. 

He didn't beg for more. This was entirely on Gerry's terms. Which didn't keep him from wriggling or jerking his hips or mumbling platitudes when he reached much lower, knuckles touching the inwards curve between his pelvis and inner thigh, sliding under the waistband of his briefs. 

It wasn’t -- Jon didn’t think it was sex. He had no real basis for this conclusion. Nothing but the fact it didn’t feel like what he’d come to expect after a lifetime of movies and the internet and peer pressure. 

They weren’t naked, for one. Not entirely. Gerry was loosely draped over him, one of his legs keeping Jon’s down on the mattress. The other -- well, Jon didn’t really notice it at first, not until he realised that what he thought was Gerry shaking was actually the way he rutted against Jon’s knee. 

They both still had their trousers on and… was that right? Jon didn’t know. Heat coiled in his belly and he hissed when Gerry palmed his flesh. Jon hadn’t noticed he’d been slightly hard already.

“Gerry…” he caught himself murmuring, trying to word through the syrupy pleasure, sticky sweetness in his brain -- that made no sense, but then, not much did. “I- I’ve n-never, I’m not-”

Gerry paused for a moment. “Let me make you feel good.”

He mouthed Jon’s skin, his breath hot. His tongue tickled a sensitive spot, lapping at Jon’s neck as he yanked on Jon’s trousers, pulling until the fabric bundled between their legs. 

Jon didn’t think he wanted him to stop, either. He was caught in a feedback loop of sheer bliss. It felt good -- Gerry felt good and his thoughts overwhelmed Jon. They were everywhere. He wasn’t inside Gerry’s mind and he didn’t need to be. He still felt and Knew and Saw him; the way his entire body shuddered; the way his breath quickened and his heart sped up; the way, in his head, all he thought was of Jon, of making sure Jon felt good, too. It was almost too much. 

Gerry’s toes curled when he edged orgasm, and Jon’s did the same. Only… well, better because of the knowledge -- the impossible awareness that he was doing this to Gerry, and vice-versa. It was wonderful, sparks glittered at the corners of his vision and Jon didn’t think he’d ever felt… so nice.

When Gerry yelped softly and bit down on the skin he’d just been kissing, Jon groaned. When Gerry’s hand finally reached between their legs and gripped Jon’s cock, he barely had a moment to consider that -- yeah, this was probably sex -- before his eyes rolled back in his head as he came.

Through the open connection, Jon felt Gerry’s pleasure at his own pleasure: in his muscles, in his his veins, in the pleased thoughts running through their minds, everywhere at once. They fed one another, fuelling the fire burning within, until Jon wasn’t even sure if he was still in his own body or if he’d delved back inside of Gerry’s.

He rode the aftermath of both their orgasms, shuddering weakly against Gerry’s chest, head lolling back to rest on the crook of Gerry’s shoulder. The warmth in his belly didn’t dissipate as little waves of pleasure washed over him. 

It wasn’t that Jon didn’t want more, just that when the thought appeared in his head, he didn’t think it was his own. Besides, he was far too spent already.

He didn’t doze off, far too aware of the way Gerry’s hand still held his softening cock and of the wetness coating his abdomen, slowly rolling down the planes of his stomach. Gerry pumped him a couple of times, working through the last vestiges of pleasure. Only then did Jon grunt and swat his hand away.

He heard a quiet noise that could’ve been a laugh.

“Well, I… really didn’t mean to ruin those pants, I guess,” Gerry said a little later. He didn’t try to move away and Jon was very glad for that. If they stayed like that he could just…

No. No he couldn’t.

“There’s a washer in the kitchen,” Jon replied a bit dryly, his throat felt raw all over again. Had he been screaming? “You can use it.”

Gerry tilted his head and touched his lips to Jon’s, breathing the words into his mouth. “And while I do that, you really need a shower. I’m not the only one who’s smelly or sticky. Not anymore.” 

“Thanks to you, maybe…”

“Though if you’re going to have a shower, I  _ would  _ like to join you. How does that sound? An acceptable apology for getting us all messy?” 

“Gerry I didn’t -- you didn’t -- You don’t have to apologize, I…” Jon wasn’t sure how much of a confession it was, especially after he’d already told Gerry he’d never done anything like this before. “I enjoyed it, very much so.”

“I certainly hope you did. I mean, after all those noises you made…”

“What?” Jon shivered.

Gerry laughed against him, leaning to kiss his cheeks, one at a time. “Relax Jon, I was just teasing you. I’m not… exactly experienced either. I’m just glad I was able to make you feel good.”

Then he finally pulled back, slowly sitting up. Jon felt fingers touch his, a thumb caress the inside of his wrist where his pulse thrummed a little too fast still. “Come on, let’s go get that shower.”

“Only if I can shampoo your hair,” Jon said, stifling a surprised cry when Gerry lifted his body off the mattress. 

“Deal.”

 


	15. Interlude: Tim

Tim was angry.

He wasn’t sure why.

Okay so, that wasn’t exactly true. He knew the general shape of the why -- he was pretty much always angry these days, there was no beginning or end to it, and there was no reason not to feel that way. Anger, that relentless, insidious pain that flickered in each and every thought, had become the backdrop to his life.

This specific anger though… it wasn’t something he could discern or pull apart from everything else. He was angry at Elias for trapping him; at Jon for… being everything he was; at Martin for just giving up, for trying to make it better; at the archives themselves -- as if the building’s existence had somehow predicted his entrapment. Maybe it had.

At his own brother for starting it all -- for being the first piece in the puzzle… No. No. He couldn’t.

It didn’t feel right.

His desk was covered in scraps of paper, little bits and pieces of everything he’d been able to find on the Stranger and its Circus, dating all the way back from the Institutes founding to the present day. It wasn’t much, and Tim would’ve suspected Elias from intentionally derailing his investigation if he hadn’t been asked to by the man already.

Though perhaps that was just another form of control. Of keeping his rage concentrated to a single point of seething fury -- to a specific purpose and targets -- rather than allow it to diffuse and eventually vanish, lashing out at everything and everyone around him.

The thought that Elias had planned for this only pissed him off more. He should’ve seen it coming, of course he should have, but he wasn’t Jon, and he most certainly wasn’t Martin, with his endless upbeat optimism.

Tim slammed both his fists down on the desk and watched as the tea Martin had brought him earlier vibrated in its mug and splashed the paperwork. It was cold. He hadn’t felt like drinking it and there was definitely no point now. It was just another completely meaningless gesture -- to be made a cuppa like in any other office job, only to be reminded that oops, yeah, he was stuck here.

That he would die here.

And now, Jon was coming back. Tim knew this -- though there was no logical reason for him to. Elias hadn’t told him -- not in words, anyway. Tim just knew he was supposed to walk outside and greet Jon in about five minutes, and that he had to guide the arsehole all the up to the other arsehole’s office -- though he didn’t know why.

He obeyed because of the threat, implicit in those thoughts forced in his mind. Tim didn’t think he’d be able to live with himself if he saw what really had happened to Danny.

Imagining it… that was a torture all of its own, but to observe it? Unable to change anything at all? Tim would rather die. And Elias wouldn’t let him do that either.

He was helpless: hands tied behind his back without rope or any other physical means. At least that would’ve made it easy to struggle.

This was… torture, with the part that made it torture removed. Tim couldn’t talk about it with anyone -- Martin, maybe, but he didn’t want to hear the gentle reassurance everything was going to be okay -- and he couldn’t just leave.

He made it outside with barely a minute to spare, and it was with smug satisfaction that he noticed Jon was already waiting out in the pouring rain. He looked far smaller than Tim remembered, his clothes hanging loose and flapping in the wind.

That was odd, though perhaps not as odd as the huge sunglasses that covered half of Jon’s face in shadows, making it impossible to tell if he was gawking at Tim or not.

“Trying out a new fashion, boss?” Tim sneered, crossing his arms against his chest. Behind him, the pull of the institute solidified in his head. It’d become worse in the past couple months; Tim seldom left these days.

“Tim? I didn’t expect you to be the one to meet me here,” Jon said. Tim saw him take a couple of steps forward, holding his arms out like he was afraid he might fall or something.

Alone that would’ve surprised him, but Jon sounded… shocked, which was definitely set his alarm bells ringing, especially considering Tim was right there in front of him. Had he not noticed his presence or was he playing at something? Tim couldn’t tell and that, right there, that had his anger flaring.

“Yeah, I’m sure you would love to have a lovely warm reunion with Martin or Melanie, but they’re both busy today so the big boss sent me to fetch you.”

Jon didn’t reply, but Tim felt that terrible prodding  in the back of his head -- just like when Jon had phoned him  -- and he heard himself growl. He wasn’t going to get fired for this, so why care? “If you don’t stop that right now, I’m going to punch you.”

“I wasn't- I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.” The presence withdrew slowly.

Tim wasn’t sure if that made him want to punch Jon even more or not. If the fact he’d apologised while sounding honestly sorry for the intrusion made him angrier or not.

Tim chose to ignore it -- bloodshed, as satisfying as the thought might be, wouldn’t solve any of his problems. He turned away, pushing the heavy double doors open and holding them for Jon. There was no way he should have to do this, or that Jon couldn’t get a fucking door open by himself. And yet… he somehow knew he had to.

When Jon didn’t immediately step forward, confirming Tim’s suspicion that there was something going on, he reached and yanked on the sleeve of his jacket. “What do you think you’re doing?” Tim snapped. “Come on already, before I get in trouble for not letting you in or something.”

Jon fell against him -- for a second they were chest to chest, Tim pinned to the door -- and then Jon jumped back, flinching like hadn’t expected Tim’s touch at all. Like he hadn’t seen him coming.

Thrown off balance, Tim stretched his arms so he wouldn’t slip and break his skull on the pavement. With his luck that would only leave him somehow disabled and still under Elias thumb -- a mindless beholding ghoul, perhaps. He’d read something about one before, hadn’t he?

“What the fuck Jon!”

Looking up, he saw the exact moment in which Jon’s sunglasses fell to the ground and watched as Jon followed, down on his knees, searching for- holy fuck.

“What the actual fuck happened to you?”

Jon was a crisscross of scars. Some ran down from the corners of his eyes, across his chin, others circled the area above his cheeks and- Tim knew his boring worm scars were nothing compared to the mess that was Jon’s face; the fact his once dark pupils had turned a creepy milk-white tone. He could barely stand to look at him, though it wasn’t disgust that weighed in the pit of his stomach.

“I can’t see,” he heard Jon say very quietly, an undercurrent of pain charged in his voice.

 _It doesn’t change anything,_ Tim told himself. It can’t. _He’s still the same asshole that would keep me trapped here if he could._ Only Jon wasn’t Elias and it wasn’t really his fault Tim was here, was it?

It didn’t matter. It changed nothing. It wouldn’t.

“Totally hadn’t noticed that,” Tim hissed, brushing little drops of rain from his clothes. He was going to be gross by the time they got back to his desk. And that was definitely Jon’s fault, so fuck him. “Are you going to just stay there or what?”

There was an incredulous little noise from Jon’s direction and... was that guilt- okay, yeah, it was guilt. Jon was blind and Tim didn’t need to be such an arse, but he was, and whatever sympathy he had left for Jon, it wasn’t much.

“Fine. Fine. If you need help then just ask for it, I’m not some sort of mind reader like the rest of this place.”

He waited. There was no one else around and if Elias wanted him to help Jon, well, he had another thing coming.

Jon squeaked, a tiny, tiny cry falling from his lips. “Can you? I can’t find them…”

Tim nodded, then laughed when he realised Jon couldn’t see him. Steadying himself, he reached down only so he could shove Jon’s sunglasses back in his hands and hopefully stop gawking at that mangled face of his.

Jon followed, slowly getting back on his feet, shooting what might’ve been a forlorn glance in the direction of his voice. It was creepy, not the scars or the fact Jon was actually blind, but the way he kept trying, even though all Tim did was give him shit.

Justifiable, really.

“I’d recommend plastic surgery by the way,” Tim said when Jon finally stepped towards him. It was a tentative thing, unsure and awkward, and it was only for the sake of not pissing Elias off that Tim gripped his hand, pulling Jon along.

Jon’s fingers were cold and wet and Tim felt a wave of guilt -- and maybe Martin’s voice, chiding him.

They were quiet, which wasn’t unusual for Jon. But Tim had nothing left to say -- nothing he could really tell Jon without feeling horrible, even if the reasons for his silence might be much different now.

Once or twice, he watched Jon open his mouth and heard the hint of a breath hang in the air between them. It was gone before Tim could point out that if Jon wanted to tell him something, he should do it already.

Finally, they arrived at the long, dimly lit corridor which led to Elias’ office.

Looking back, he really should’ve noticed the paintings hanging on the walls, the very first time he’d visited the institute for his interview. They were… unusual, to say the least. Not people -- not even landscapes or mundane scenes -- but, well, they were too abstract to tell, broad strokes and a bright and dark colours melting together.

Tim hadn’t thought anything of them back then. Now he saw them for what they were: watchers. All of them staring at him as one, daring him to keep going, observing his every step -- seeing inside of him.

He them and he hated this fucking place.

“Oops, we’ve arrived at your destination, time to get off and all that,” he said, shaking his hand free of Jon’s. “I’m sure there’s a really nice conversation waiting for you, I totally envy you, boss.”

Tim expected -- hell, he didn’t know what to expect. Anger at his own anger? Maybe for Jon to finally confront him or at least, call him out on his bullshit. What he didn’t expect was for Jon to snort -- it was a pitiful thing -- and shake his head.

“Martin is waiting for you,” Jon told him and -- seriously _fuck_ him. “I think he needs you for something.”

“Of course he does,” Tim replied. It was only a hefty dose of self restraint -- and remembering the danger of Elias’ presence and of his constant watchful gaze -- which kept him from physically punting Jon towards the door, or kicking his arse, or just tripping him over and running.

Tim inhaled sharply, too deep, indulging in a trickle of pain that inflated with his lungs.

“I guess you’ll see me later then.” He paused. “Oh wait, sorry. I forgot. You won’t.” And he stormed off, though not before he had the chance to hear a door open and Elias’ smooth as butter voice ring out through the corridor, loud enough that Tim knew Elias knew he could hear him.

“How nice of you to join me, Jon. Please come in, have a seat.”  
  


 ---  
  


 Martin was waiting for Tim at his desk.

It wasn’t something he had thought to question, even if he would rather be left alone after his encounter with Jon. After all, Jon was the Archivist -- that had to be one fucked up job description -- and he seemed to know things the way Elias did, even if he hadn’t exactly been around much.

“Tim!” Martin called out as soon as entered the archives. There was something jittery and nervous in the way Martin shifted on his feet and Tim felt a sudden shot of… worry? “Did you see him?”

“What?” He leaned back against one of the tall archiving cabinets and crossed his arms. His hair was still damp, falling in clumps over his eyes and that was all because Jon had needed someone to guide him around the institute. For fuck’s sake.

“Did you see Jon!” It wasn’t even a question and Tim narrowed his eyes at Martin’s puppy face. “Someone up at the desk said that you came in with him and I just… I wanted to know how he was.”

It was difficult to be annoyed at Martin. Tim wanted to -- he really did -- but whenever the thought he might make Martin cry ran through his head, he was reminded he really didn’t want to. He… liked him, as much as he could possibly like any of his colleagues.

Maybe more, which made Martin a liability and one he really should stay away from. He’d tried. He’d locked himself in his room and worked from his flat for weeks and… it only made him miss Martin when he finally got back.

Nothing would ever work out, but maybe Tim didn’t need it to.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? I’m sure his meeting with Elias will be over soon and he’ll be able to tell you all about his vacation.”

Martin shuffled closer and Tim had nowhere to go -- though mostly he just didn’t want to move and Martin’s presence didn’t exactly scare him off. “You know that’s not what it was!”

No of course it hadn’t been a fucking vacation. Tim had realised that the moment he felt Jon push inside his head, during that first phone call weeks ago. Didn't mean he was going to just admit he’d seen firsthand just how broken Jon was. Especially not to Martin.

“Might as well have been.” He scowled. “And left all the actual work for us while he went God knows where.”

Reading and recording statements… well, if Tim never had to do it again, he wouldn’t. Just the thought of having to go through that again -- to feel and See another person’s encounter with the supernatural -- it sent shivers running up his back, nestling sharply at the base of his neck. And of course Jon hadn’t left them much of a choice. There was no one else to do it.

They had their hands full and it was Jon’s fault. Again.

“I know you… _we all_ have good reasons to dislike him but, it wasn’t his fault back then, and it’s not now,” Martin said. He sounded sad, though whether for Jon or Tim, he wasn’t sure.

Tim exhaled hard through his nose, his jaw clenched shut. “Why do you keep lying to yourself?”

“What? What do you mean?” Martin took another step towards him, they were practically touching now.

“Jon had a choice -- before -- he knew what he was getting into when he left. When he first ran away and left us to just… handle all of this!” _And look at what he’s done,_ Tim thought bitterly. “But no, he just couldn’t think about anything but his work and his own damn self. Ever wonder why he’s been alone for so long?”

There was gossip, sure, it was an office job -- mostly anyway. “I just don’t get why you keep sticking up for the guy, you know he hated you at first,” Tim finished.

When Martin cupped his face, there was a split second during which Tim thought he’d crossed some invisible line and might get slapped by the most passive guy he’d ever known. But Martin didn’t slap him. He kept his fingers splayed over Tim’s chin, brushing the oval scars that marred his skin and that… stirred conflicting emotions in him.

He looked so damn sad, so damn… disappointed in him. Like he just knew how much better Tim could do. Or maybe those were his own thoughts in his mind -- not Jon’s or Elias, but Tim himself.

“I know,” Martin admitted.  “I guess I just- I don’t think he really had a choice, either.”

“Even if he didn’t have a choice, look at all he’s done!” He didn’t push Martin away, but there was no way he was going to just stand and listen to him defend Jon. “You saved his life and he stalked you, for fuck’s sake.”

“He just-”

Tim shook his head, lifting one hand to grip Martin’s on his face, holding him there. “Stop excusing him, Martin. Just... stop.” _Nothing good will ever come from that and Jon will use you for the sake of this place_. He didn’t say that -- didn’t want to upset Martin; didn’t want to … scare him off.

“I’m still worried about him.”

“I know,” Tim sighed, sliding Martin’s palm over his mouth, stifling his own words, kissing his fingers. “And you’re far too good for him.”

“Tim? I’m not sure I know what you’re- oh.” Martin squeaked, “T-that’s nice.”

It had taken him maybe a week to notice Martin’s absurd crush on their boss, back when he’d first started his job as an Archival assistant. Even now -- years later -- it was still apparent that Martin had never stopped thinking about him, despite Jon’s mistrust and borderline abuse.

“You’re not sure what I’m doing?” Tim asked -- more of a raspy chuckle than an actual question -- nibbling and licking his way around Martin’s digits, pulling them inside his mouth, against his tongue. “I thought that was obvious like, three weeks ago.”

“I uh...” Martin flushed a deep red, his cheeks glistening in the shitty light quality, and it finally dawned on Tim that he really _didn’t_ know. That he hadn’t realised the way Tim had been trying so hard to be less of an arsehole around him -- or the way he’d been trying to… yeah, to protect him.

For one painfully long moment, he was torn between wrapping his arm on Martin’s awful jumper, pushing him away or doing the exact opposite, really. It was only the tiny breathy moan and the way Martin’s whole face lit up when his mouthed his thumb that signed his decision.

Oh well.

He pulled Martin in an awkwardly one-armed hug, turning his head so that the tips of Martin’s fingers hovered over his skin.

“Sometimes you’re just as bad as him,” Tim said, and there was dark amusement in his voice. It pretty funny, or it would have been, if it weren’t so painful.

“As him?” Martin asked.

Tim was glad that he could at least use his eyes to convey how utterly bewildered he was, since his words seemed to have no effect. He shot Martin a look, brows drawn together in mock affliction. “As Jon! I can’t believe I’m having to spell it out to you.” He tilted his head to the side, feeling Martin’s nails drag over his chin. “Would it make it easier if I just kissed you? Would you understand it then?”

Martin stuttered something that could’ve been a yes, a no, or anything else in between. Tim didn’t know and he didn’t wait to know. He watched Martin’s eyes close, watched the way the corners of his mouth widened and the blush that crawled all the way down his neck.

_I’m already fucked, why not go all the way._

Then he kissed Martin.

Somehow, somewhere in the back of his mind, he was reminded that Elias might just be watching them and it only made him kiss Martin harder, biting down on his lower lip and using the moment Martin gasped to slide his tongue inside.

 _Fancy some PDA? Take that, you utter arsehole,_ he thought at Elias, not without satisfaction. 

In return, he felt knowledge shift in his head. It was entirely unexpected and he gasped as it sunk deeper and deeper in his brain, dragging itself -- all sharp edges, jostling other thoughts out of place -- across his recent memories.

_You know that higher ground, Tim? You seem to have lost sight of it the moment you decided to use the person you supposedly care for as a weapon without their knowledge_

He heard Elias laugh in the distance.

_You’re lucky I still need you here, there is so much I have to show you._

 

\---

 

Tim was still angry. He wasn’t sure he’d ever not be angry again. Right now, he was mostly furious with himself and his own inability to ever make things better. Instead, he kept driving the  stakes higher and digging himself a deeper grave, it seemed.

And now, he couldn’t even trust his own feelings.

Even with Martin curled against him and the comfortable warmth of a space heater in the corner of the archives, he felt a dreadful chill crystallise in his chest.

“Jon’s not in a good way,” Tim said, running his knuckles under Martin’s sweater, over his back, drawing circles and idle designs on his skin. “None of us are, but when I saw him… I’m not sure how he made it back on his own. Not that I asked. I doubt he would have answered me if even if I had.”

Martin hummed against his shoulder then lifted his head again. “Oh, you know when he called and asked me to read things out to him? One of the times I tried someone else picked up, they didn’t say who they were -- a man, I think -- but they did tell me Jon was in a group session or something. Maybe that’s who’s helping him?”

It certainly made more sense than trying to imagine blind-as-a-bat Jon trekking the world alone.

“Was he, um, you know-” Martin mumbled and it was one of the most adorable things Tim had ever heard. It broke his heart. “Since he mentioned he needed me to read those reports and-”

“Yeah, he’s blind,” Tim stated, careful not to squish Martin too hard when he whimpered, burying his face in the crook of Tim’s neck. “I don’t know what else… We didn’t exactly have a conversation.”

It had been Tim’s fault entirely. And he didn’t regret it in the slightest.

Even Martin’s... company wasn’t enough to forgive Jon for everything he’d done -- and the handful of things in his power that he hadn’t done.

“I hope he’s going to be okay,” Martin croaked, and Tim didn’t know whether to comfort him and pretend that he cared about Jon or to just admit to the truth. That if he never saw Jon again, it would be the rest of his life well spent.

He did neither, leaning to the side so that he could stretch his legs out on the sofa with Martin still cuddled up to him. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” was all he said.

Martin mumbled something else, but Tim wasn’t really paying attention.

Tim stared up at the low hanging ceiling, counting silvery cobwebs like that'd help him relax. It didn’t. Not exactly. The near silence was what did it. It was almost homely, even if that must mean Tim was losing his mind, comparing the institute to a home.

It wasn't, but with Martin’s chest moving up and down against him and the steadiness of their combined breathing, he felt a little more at peace.

The rhythmic sound soothed Tim; although not the anger, but the underlying doubt in him.  Maybe Elias was right and maybe he was just another monster in disguise -- but those were probably lies. It would be easier to believe he had no control over his own future.

He didn't, of course. He couldn’t have, though the core of fear that maybe it was all his own fault remained, icy and sharp and endless.

So caught up in his own thoughts, trapped in a circular logic that teetered the line between blaming himself and the institute, Tim only realised he’d lost track of time when one of the phones rang across the room. He didn’t scramble up, but Martin did, nearly elbowing his face in the process.

“Did I- oh god, I fell asleep! Tim!” Tim didn't think he was apologising to him.

He groaned, holding his head against the sudden noise, his thumb rubbing a line across his temple.

A quick glance up at one of the new clocks and Tim knew they’d lost at least two hours. Which meant he was late for at a few of the research deadlines he’d been trying to impose on himself. Oh well. It didn't matter anyway.

Nothing did.

“And no one came in the archives,” Tim found that he couldn't not point out the obvious to Martin. He sat up slowly, feeling out of sorts and oddly groggy. “Otherwise one of us would’ve noticed. Relax Martin, there’s nothing wrong with taking a nap and I’m sure Jon would tell you the same if he was here.”

And if he wasn't such a stuck up arsehole, he added in his head.

It really didn't matter.

“Aren't you going to even pick up the pho-” Martin never finished. “Tim?”

Tim shrugged and watched Martin quickly step away from him, darting around a couple of badly positioned chairs and a pile of books that was on the verge of toppling over. He really needed to sort out some of the mess in the archives, if only he had the energy.

From afar, he watched Martin pick up the phone and speak with whoever was on the other end of the call, the words muffled by distance and Tim’s nonchalance.

He started to pick himself up, maybe return to his desk for a quick brush up of his latest circus-related find, when Martin waved one arm in his direction, beckoning him closer. It was odd, but not too odd. He was still on the phone, mouthing words at him even as Tim made his way around the room.

“Yes, I can hear you Martin, I'm coming,” he mouthed back, his lips curling down in a scowl.

“There's someone apparently waiting for you upstairs,” Martin whispered, then louder, “yes of course I can do that, no it shouldn't be a problem.” He paused briefly and pointed at the door, voice dropping again. “ Outside I mean, he's saying you should go now. I'll follow in a sec.”

At the way Tim lifted one eyebrow and tensed, Martin continued, “I need to put a folder together on some sort of drawings and- Within the day? I mean I can certainly try- um, okay, I'll get it done.” Martin's voice went funny and Tim thought that might be utter terror seeping in from somewhere.

Immediately, he knew he couldn't leave. He wanted to stay -- he wanted to know who Martin was talking to and why he was needed here while Tim went fuck knows where. He wanted to reach for Martin, pull him close. Protect him. And none of his limbs obeyed him. Not even his eyes, blinking in a way that was weirdly sluggish and forced.

It wasn't a pressure or a presence in his head, it wasn't Jon -- definitely not Jon. It was -- something far more intense than anything Tim had ever felt. So terrible it was actually kinda nice -- freeing at least.

He nodded mechanically in Martin's direction, aware of how painful it would be to fight the compulsion to move without even needing to try it.

He was… locked inside his own mind, the passive observer, or a spectator at the movies, but missing the bucket of popcorn. But there was no panic, and the more he tried to think about why this whole thing worried him, the more his emotion slipped past and was shoved away.

 _Yes, just like that_ , someone told him. It was Elias, Tim thought. _Soon you'll see what I have in store for you. Soon you'll be… Better._ Elias sounded far from pleased, which made no sense. _At least you'll serve, where the Archivist would have been a waste._

His legs trembled with the effort it took them to move him, when the rest of his body flopped uselessly like jelly. It was as it whoever or whatever controlled him wasn't entirely sure of how humans worked, only that they somehow did. It took him too long to walk upstairs, and even longer -- at least another dozen minutes of careless, robotic steps -- to make it through the atrium and outside

It was still raining. Tim could discern London through the heavy curtain of grey specks that fell before him. More of a shape and a knowing that an actual car, he saw a vehicle, deep red and slick wet, parked on the curb. Its windows were tinted dark and somehow Tim knew there was no one -- no one alive, anyway -- driving it. He didn't recognise the car itself and he couldn't twist around to look for a registration plate, either.

But then, he didn't think he wanted to.

As a matter of fact, Tim couldn't do anything. Nothing at all. He closed in on the inviting open door, shuffling his feet behind him and dove into the car. Darkness peppered the back seats in swathes of purple shadows against cream -- no, against skin coloured leather.

Inside, he smelled it.

He couldn't swallow down. That was a good thing. He couldn't even open his mouth to scream, when whatever it was that'd kept his feelings at bay left him and he was overwhelmed by a tsunami of emotion. None of his muscles obeyed him. Tears poured down his face and he wasn't sure they were his, or if there was something else driving him to cry.

Both, probably.

In his mind, Tim saw Danny. Heard him, too. His desperate pleading, his choked moans; the way they'd all eventually died out, until the only thing that was left was the rabbity pounding of his heartbeat in his chest.

The car didn't roar to life. Its engine was quiet -- too quiet to swallow the images in his head -- and when it rolled away, Tim barely felt like they were moving.

He wasn't.

 

\---

 

He opened his eyes to a dull throb on the side of skull and a panicked voice ringing in his ears. It was too bright all over and it took him a moment to gather his scrambled thoughts. He wasn't entirely sure his body was really his own until he tried to move and--

Yeah, everything definitely hurt.

“Tim?” That was Martin, and Tim would've recognised the sweet, concerned notes of his voice anywhere. And right now, he couldn't be happier to hear them. “Oh- oh G-god. I'm so glad you're okay! I thought you were dead when I got here and t-that there was nothing I could do and-”

“Martin,” Tim somehow willed himself to speak the words. His throat was too dry. He felt just like how he had done after a crazy three day bender -- this wasn't just another a hangover brewing in his head, though, Tim wasn't lucky enough for that… “Where are we?”

With each attempt to recall what'd happened, the more detail he saw in his brother’s prone body. Every time he closed his eyes, a single imagine remained: Danny hanging from what looked like meat hooks and… it was the way his skin hung that really caught Tim's attention, askew, peeling off in layers, revealing… no. He forced himself to ignore it, to listen and to focus on the present -- _Danny is dead, you can't help him and you can't help Martin unless you stay alive._

“You don't know? Do you uh, r-remember anything?”

Maybe another time Tim would’ve tried explain that if he remembered anything, he certainly wouldn't have asked Martin about it. Now, all he managed was a strangled, furious noise and a roll of his shoulders. The latter sent shivers running down his spine, a cold ache crawling over his hips and thighs.

Tim heard Martin's breath quicken next to him, and caught a glimpse of a hand brushing his. “Oh, okay, I, uh, I don't know for sure. When I got upstairs you were gone gone but… I-I saw him. Jon. Tim- I d-don’t-”

Even caught between pain and confusion and anger, Tim shuffled closer to Martin, nuzzling Martin's face with his own. It's not your fault, he didn't say, didn't trust himself to speak.

Besides, what did he know?

“He was waiting for me!” Martin said. “I didn't even realise it was Jon standing there, he looked so… small, I never-” Martin shook his head against him and Tim almost wished he didn't care. He blamed Jon for this too. “He gave me a little pouch and uh t-told me you needed it. And a paper with an address and- I’m sorry!”

Whatever Jon had done, Martin was distressed enough about it and in turn, so was Tim. Even if every thought turned to Danny and- no, no, no. He had to stop thinking about that.

Tim grumbled quietly against Martin’s skin. Then, gripping onto whatever stubbornness and sheer anger he had left, he started to get up- or well, he tried to. One of his arms was propped behind him, curled over Martin’s chest, fingers clawing at Martin’s clothes.

The other… Martin held his hand even as he tried to pull away. Or, more precisely, Martin held what was left of his hand.

Tim stared down, his mouth hung open. He blinked against the white stars in the corners of his vision and the lightheadedness that followed. There was nothing apparently wrong with his hand, nothing that he could pinpoint. Not at first.

It was the motion that did it.

Martin held on to the tips of his fingers and Tim watched them… stretch obscenely. There was no blood. Despite the sharp throbs of heat that coursed up his wrist and forearm, he could see no wounds -- nothing that could explain what had happened to him. Nothing that made sense.

It didn’t have to.

It felt as if his hand had been emptied inside out; as if there was nothing left but skin left, too loose to hold its shape.

No. Tim knew, with a sudden blazing certainty that he was sure couldn’t come from him, that it didn’t feel like this hand had been emptied. It had. And it was all his own doing.

_You just could not leave it alone, could you? Well, I suppose I should thank you, Tim. It worked out in the end. Oh, you’re not there yet._

“H-he s-said he was going to keep them.” Tim heard and felt Martin sobs racking him, though he couldn’t… bring himself to look away. “The b-bones I mean, as an… in-insurance. That’s what he said.”

Who said? Why? Tim had no questions and no answers.

A floppy glove, that’s what he was reminded of. Every attempt at moving his hand failed -- his muscles twitching uselessly -- and he wanted to.. scream? Push Martin away and run? Hack away at that disgusting excuse for a hand? Perhaps all three at once.

Words escaped him. There were a few small clicking sounds, and felt his mouth slide open and shut several times in a row, his tongue limp and unmoving as he tried to… work around the overwhelming thoughts in his head. His breath came quicker and quicker, his pulse thundering in his ears. His entire body shook.

In the end, it was Martin that stopped him from spiralling further down towards a major breakdown -- or at least, stopped it from getting much, much worse. Tim had no idea how he managed it, or even why he deserved it.

 _You don’t_ , he heard. That wasn’t Elias.

“Tim!”

He blinked again, his sight was blurry and all he saw was his hand, and that same light from before, shining so close to him it brought tears to his eyes. Maybe he’d been crying already? The room -- was he in a room? -- seemed to close in on him and -- Martin was right there.

He’d almost forgotten.

“Tim!”

It wasn’t clear what he was doing, not at first. It took Tim some time to focus before he noticed that Martin cupped both sides of his face, forcing him to look away from his broken hand -- that wasn’t the right word -- and up at Martin’s eyes. They shone clearly, as did the rest of him, backlit, skin flushed and tear-streaked.

“Tim, w-we need to get out of here okay? T-there’s uh, someone helping,” Martin said quickly. “C-can you walk?”

It was a good question. Tim nodded, only because he really didn’t think he had a choice. If this was Elias’ plan all along, running would barely help, but Martin was there and he couldn’t not go with him.

Standing -- well, to stay standing -- was harder than either of them anticipated. Martin held him close but Tim was a bit taller and they barely made it a couple of steps before he had to stop, gagging and heaving, all those piercing images and sick thoughts melding into his mind and-

Someone else was right there.

He couldn’t see the man or person or thing’s face, it was shrouded by a scarf and a hood, the entirety of its skin covered in shadows. All he felt were too-stiff arms around his, yanking him forward, through the light and into a darker room -- another room? -- and finally, outside. Tim recognized the gloomy sight of London at sunset immediately.

“Come on,” it told him. “Unless you want him to get to you again.” It continued yanking him down the street, away from… wherever he’d been.

Beside him, Martin spoke too. “Y-you will be o-okay, you will,” he muttered, briefly touching his cheek to Tim’s.

Tim wasn’t sure he believed him.  



	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What do you mean the dancer is gone?"

“What do you mean the Dancer is gone?” 

Gerry sat next to him, his legs draped over Jon’s thighs, and Jon saw himself through his eyes. After Elias’ brutal teardown of Gerry’s mental defenses, neither had thought it a good idea to keep Gerry’s sight from Jon. Even if it did mean Jon could feel his thoughts -- his surprise and love and everything else -- brush pash him every now and again.

The phone was firmly wedged between Jon’s shoulder and jaw, pressed snugly to his ear. There was a slightly pink tinge to his cheeks, furious heat rushing up his face. “That’s not enough of an answer and you know it,” Jon growled, watching as his own eyebrows drew together and his eyes narrowed. “No, of course you had nothing to do with it. No, what  _ you _ forget is that I am the Archivist. I won’t have you feed me lies, not anymore.”

Elias kept his voice perfectly smooth and pleasant even as it changed, the crackling distortion noticeable on Jon’s end of the line. “Then you will believe me that I do  _ not  _ know how it happened. I could look into it, but why bother? This setback will delay the Unknowing for at least another couple years, I’m sure.”

_ Yes, why bother trying to understand exactly how the Dancer went missing, so we can repeat it or shut the damn thing down for good? _ Jon thought, not without a heavy dose of bitterness. “Just so you can continue to play your own cards.” Beside him, Gerry stroked his palm up Jon’s back. Lord, he needed that, and then some.

“Not cards, Jon. Have you forgotten our game already?”

How could he have? Every time he was finally sure he’d slipped free from Elias’ corrosive touch, he dreamt of that horrible, enormous chessboard; of that desk in a red-painted room; of those twisted pawns that flickered and shifted and moved all on their own. The last time he’d visited the scene, one of the Knights had swollen to double its size before Jon’s eyes, one of its limbs withering as he watched. 

It had screamed at him -- that was a first: _ You did this. This is your fault,  _ it had told Jon between hiccups and mechanical sobs.

That night Jon had woken up with tears streaming down his face and a choked cry on the tip of his tongue, his heart beating so fast it deafened him. It was only the way Gerry had gently scooped him in his arms that stopped Jon from spiralling into a panic attack.

No. Jon hadn’t forgotten the game. He also hadn’t forgotten the way he’d been trapped within the dream -- nightmare, really -- or the long lasting effects it had on him. 

He bit down on the inside of his cheeks to stop himself from telling Elias to fuck off, or hanging up on him. After all, as twisted as it might be, Elias was still his boss and Jon was still technically -- despite not having set foot in the place for the past month -- Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, and all the bureaucracy that came with it. 

“Of course I didn’t forget,” he said, the anger barely concealed in his tone. “Was there another reason you needed to call me, aside from telling me that the focus of… I don’t know, my entire life for the past year and half, has suddenly disappeared?”

From the corner of Gerry’s eyes, he glimpsed the alarm clock on his bedside table. It was barely early enough to be awake, least have a conversation with Elias of all people. 

“Yes, I would like you to come to the Institute today, there are a few things that need taking care of and that can’t be done over the phone or... “ He paused and Jon could imagine the sick grin on his face. “Through other means.”

Gerard must’ve heard the request, either in his mind or through the phone, because he stiffened, and straightened, leaning one elbow on the mattress. Being inside both their heads at once was strange enough that when Gerry moved, Jon felt a tickle of vertigo. But then Gerry’s fingers ran further up, drawing lines along the back of Jon’s skull and he relaxed again -- or as much as he could, with Elias on the phone.

_ Be careful.  _ He heard Gerry’s thoughts.  _ I can’t imagine he means anything good by that. _

Jon couldn’t, either. “No, I’m not going anywhere,” he said. He gave it a feeble attempt at feigning blandless, like it didn’t matter to him. “You don’t get to suddenly decide to call me after a month just so you can beckon me like a dog.” 

“Which was never my intention,” Elias replied. Despite the chill that entered his voice, Elias’ tone barely changed. It was ever so slightly quieter than before, a little shorter, the words clipped by a sharpness Jon had only ever heard in his head, or his dreams. “I can’t force you to make the trip, although I can guarantee that you will prefer that to my next offer.”

_ It’s not a threat, _ Gerry said.  _ Well, it’s a threat if he actually means to hurt you -- or hurt me, which would be easier to do, all things considered. _

_ Hopefully he believes that. _

Jon nodded. They had had a few talks about what to do once the Unknowing had been stopped -- how to avoid playing into Elias’ hands as soon as the Beholding’s ritual came up. Jon just thought… hoped they might have more time than this. He wasn’t prepared. Not really. Not yet.

“So be it. You aren’t going to force me.” He sighed, tilting his head back until Gerry’s hand stroked the top of it, smoothing his hair down. “What’s the other offer?”

Instead of an answer to his question, silence flooded the line. Jon was confused for just a second, then it clicked: the silence was Elias’ answer. It was not built with words or sentences. Instead, it formed as a knot of tension, not in his, but within a fragment of Gerry’s mind. Predictable, really. 

Jon pulled the phone an inch away from his ear so he could form the shape of words in Gerry’s direction.  _ You okay? _ he said, without thinking it and without really speaking it, either.

Gerry nodded, Jon felt the motion against his shoulder, hair flying everywhere. He inhaled, focused on what they’d been practicing for the best part of a month and hoped that the Archivist was as fine with their plan as it had revealed. It wasn’t a sure thing. Jon didn’t know if he’d be strong enough and as usual, he had no choice. Gerry would suffer, otherwise.

Elias had the upper hand now. He could resume the conversation as if nothing had happened. Jon knew this and he knew his own skill was a bit cruder. Without Gerry right there, he probably wouldn’t have been able to maintain their connection, or direct Elias’ prodding gaze away from Gerry.

Speaking was nearly impossible. Sweat rolled down both sides of his face, trickling the curve of his neck. From Gerry’s point of view, Jon looked a mess, shaking slightly, his skin taut and pale. Jon mustered all of his strength of will just to keep his teeth from chattering. “Are you going to tell me or is this another one of your tricks?” he said, taunting.

“Oh, it’s not a trick, Jon. I would never expect to trick you.” 

There was a surge of power and Elias’ consciousness slammed itself into the barrier Jon had constructed -- that wasn’t the right word, there were no words to describe what happened, but it was as close as he could make himself understand it. 

“No?” Jon couldn’t keep himself from gasping and nearly biting his tongue. “I- Lord- I think you’re going to have to try harder than that.”

_ Taunt him, Elias has never enjoyed challenges. When he loses his temper -- and he will -- that will work against him. Then you can withdraw.  _ That was the Archivist.  _ You’re stronger than I ever thought you capable, Jon. It would’ve been a shame to erase your mind, I’m glad it didn’t come to that,  _ it added.

It didn’t feel emotions the way Jon did, it never had, and right then, Jon felt that it was genuinely content with their situation. It was absurd, really.

“I’m not doing anything, Jon. Why would you think that?”

Jon could barely keep track of the phone, Elias’ pressure in Gerry’s head and his own thoughts. And he nearly lost his grasp on it all when the Archivist stirred into awareness. 

_ He’s playing with fire. Let me handle him. _

It was very uncomfortable to have the entirety of his presence… shifted around, without a chance to even think. One moment Jon was mostly in control of his body, the next -- he was still in control and he still watched from the sidelines, using Gerry’s sight. But he was… different. The Archivist was still right there and so was Jon. Together, in a way.

Gerry’s hands dropped away from him. His head moving down to rest in Jon’s lap.

“Hello Elias,” Jon- the Archivist said. Though it used Jon’s voice, it didn’t sound human. It couldn’t have. Its intonation was all wrong, the cadence of his words utterly foreign. “Would you like me to tell you exactly what you are doing, or would you prefer I show you?”

“Archivist. How nice of you to finally show up.” On the other end, Jon could hear Elias tap his fingers on… something stiff and hollow -- maybe his desk -- bones? Jon wasn’t sure. “I’d started to think you had disappeared, even after all the trouble I went to growing you in him.”

Whip-fast, the Archivist snapped the link between Elias and Gerry’s mind. Jon felt the man’s whole body go soft against his. “Are you okay?” Jon asked -- and yes, that was him; maybe they were both him.

“Hmmm, just a bit tired, that was…” Gerry mumbled. “Don’t let me go to sleep, okay?” 

Jon tried to nod, tried to comfort him for a moment longer, but his awareness was back on Elias.

“Trouble?” The Archivist hummed and it sounded a bit like radio static. “If I recall - and I do, you forget I watch  _ everything  _ \- your trouble was only with finding a weak enough substitute to do your job.”

“The Hunt was perfectly adequate for our goals,” Jon heard Elias hiss. He felt his fury flicker and next to him, felt Gerry moan at a throbbing ache flaring in the back of his head. “His death would have delayed our plans only slightly, sure you Know that as well as I do.”

“You are pathetic. Do you think our Master will allow your ascension, like this?” Jon didn’t know what the Archivist meant. He didn’t have access to all of its knowledge and he wasn’t sure that was something he wanted either. “Do you think It will allow you to continue in this path?”

If Elias ever replied, Jon didn’t hear it. In fact, the rest of the exchange was completely silent. He was only aware of it as he caught wisps of thoughts and wills pushing against each other, inside his head. It was possible the Archivist meant to keep this hidden from him, but Jon thought that was very unlikely. No. Their battle was just so abstract Jon wouldn’t have been able to understand it either way. 

And then it was all over. Jon Knew this the same way he Knew that having won it meant nothing. If Elias had retreated, it was not to lick his wounds but only to devise an alternative plan, and nothing good would  come of that. 

Jon didn't think he'd ever felt this worn out before, not during his captivity and not in the hospital. It wasn't a physical thing, though it didn't help how he sagged forward, nearly collapsing over Gerry. The Archivist had kept him sitting and as it returned Jon's body back with him, well… his muscles seemed to liquefy and his heart raced in his chest. 

Gerry rolled aside after a gentle nudge and Jon saw his own face through him, his eyes drooping slightly and a knowing smile on his lips. Jon was certain that wasn’t his own expression but he didn't know what-

“Gerard Keay,” the Archivist said, rather suddenly. “It has been a while since we've come face to face like this.”

Gerry almost pushed him away, lifting his arms like it'd keep him from the Archivist. It was bizarre, to witness it happen from both ends at once. Jon wasn't sure why, but even after weeks of re-learning what the world looked like, being in both of them at once was… hard to adjust to. Sometimes he preferred the darkness of his own head. 

“Archivist.” Gerry sounded about as tired as Jon felt. A simple phone call shouldn't have brought them so much trouble. “ Is there something you want with me? Is Jon okay?”

“I haven't gone anywhere, I'm still right here,” Jon said and immediately gasped. He hadn't thought he'd been in control of his own mouth. 

“We both are,” the more he spoke, the more the Archivist’s voice blended with Jon's. “I'm not controlling you, so to speak, merely borrowing your muscles for a moment so I may talk with your partner.” It made… more sense than anything Elias had ever told him. “As for the reason I haven't done this before… we were both too weak and I saw no reason to push your body or your mind. Now that you're finally recovered, I saw no need to hold back.”

“So in simpler terms, I'm talking to… Another part of myself?” 

“If you want to think of it that way, yes, although there is a clear difference between us,” it paused, cleared Jon's throat before continuing. “You are human, I am--”

“A concept,” Gerry interrupted them. Jon immediately lowered one hand to touch his face, running the meat of his palm over Gerry’s forehead, reassuring them both that yes, he was still right there -- that he hadn't suddenly  _ become  _ the Archivist. “An idea given form and power by some alien entity beyond our comprehension.”

“Indeed. Without you Jon, I would still be just the seed of a word. And without you, Gerard Keay, I would be dead within this rotting body.”

Jon's breath hitched. He'd heard this theory from Gerry before, but to have it confirmed… Well, stranger things had happened. It was easier to believe a body snatching idea when he'd already seen so much. “That is why you agreed to help us. I know the timing of it has changed but if the Dancer is gone, then the next closest ritual… ”

“Elias will not pose a problem to you. And as long as you keep to your end of the bargain, neither will I.”

“Keep feeding you, yeah,” Gerry was the one to reply. He tilted his head so more of Jon's hand touched his skin, stroking up through his hair. “Jon will do that, not a problem, but since you're here right now, why not tell us more about the problem that's going to be the Rite of the Watcher's Crown?”

“It can be postponed, although ultimately the only way to stop it is by ridding yourselves of the Archivist. Now, you must understand my appetite is not for fear but knowledge. I am not my Master. If you decide to delay it, then so be it.” Jon's fist balled up, gripping a handful of thick, long hairs. “Eventually, another Avatar will rise to challenge me and begin the Rite, and so on. That is how it has always been.”

“And then another comes to take that one down, etcetera. That makes a lot more sense than I'd thought.” Gerry swallowed down the questions on the tip of his tongue and nodded, and then Jon heard him yelp. “Jon, not so hard please.” 

“Sorry, I'm just…” 

“Tense? I know I'm -- Jesus that was painful, when Elias tried to… wrestle my mind into submission, that's what it felt like. I actually thought that was it and I was going to...vanish. I know you were trying to protect me but I didn't know if… I was so stupid to think the tattoos would keep him from me.”

Jon bristled a little, and in Gerry's eyes he saw the ways the corners of his mouth twitched. “I wasn't sure I would be enough,” he admitted quietly enough that he almost sounded subdued, ashamed. “I almost got overwhelmed and then… You know the rest. I'm sorry.”

_ What _ ? It wasn't spoken out loud but Jon heard the thought and felt its impact all the same. “Stop apologising for trying to make it easier for me. You weren't the one who tried to rob me of my own mind, okay?”

Jon wanted to nod. he wasn't sure he trusted himself to convey the emotions unfurling in him, stretching like wings. His body felt like his own again, under his own control, with only the Archivist’s otherness a familiar presence in his head. It had been there so long now that Jon usually forgot what it was capable of.

What the Archivist made him. 

“I know, I know.” Jon's words were also his own. “But this will keep happening and at some point I might-”

“What?” Gerry said, this time out loud. “You'll be too weak to save me from some pain? We've had this conversation before, several times before, actually. Remember? I'm- fuck I'm sorry, we're both way too pent up and exhausted right now. Can we just… this wasn't your fault, and even if it was, you sorted it.”

_ Finally the voice of reason _ , Jon heard, very clearly. It was a thought that he knew brushed both his and Gerry’s minds, from the way Gerry snorted at it. 

“Thank you, Archivist,” Gerry replied. His arms reached up to pull Jon closer to him. “I'm pretty sure Jon won't ask directly, but I'd rather if you could keep your… talking to thoughts like this. It's pretty jarring, you know? Thinking I'm talking to Jon and then you just... show up out of nowhere.”

It wasn't that Jon didn't agree, only that he hadn't thought… it hadn't occurred to him to just ask. 

“Please,” he mumbled.

The Archivist didn't answer, not with anything that Jon could construct as one, anyway. Not at first. He felt a prickle of acceptance and a shiver as his body moved of its own volition. It nodded, neck twisting against Gerry, before withdrawing back into whatever recess of Jon's mind it occupied. 

Even as he settled fully back within the confines of his own mind, with a single sliver of will keeping him connected to Gerry’s vision, Jon didn't relax. He couldn't. 

“Okay, that was definitely something.” He heard Gerry yawn, burying his face in Jon's exposed skin, then Jon felt him tug on his hand. “I doubt we'll have much time before Elias makes another move, but for now, just uh, come here. ”

“Yeah, okay.” Jon obeyed, allowing Gerry to move him on the bed until they were both lying down. One of Gerry’s arms was comfortably draped over his hip and Jon had to fight the sudden dizziness as all his exhaustion, mental and otherwise, caught up with him; as every ache returned with a vengeance. 

Elias… it was difficult to tell if he'd done the right thing. Jon had certainly been angry enough to keep arguing, to fight back when Elias had tried to push Gerry. But... he hadn't thought not to do what the Archivist had told him -- had he been compelled? Jon had only ever  _ used  _ the voice; he’d never had it used  _ against _ him. If that was the case, then--

“Stop. Thinking.” Fingers tapped his skin, sliding across his inner thigh. “I can feel you brooding inside my head.”

Jon almost apologised again. “I’m worried that this is going to be a mistake - how can I stop…  _ me _ ? I just-” Jon had no idea how to vocalise what he meant, partly because there were no words to make any sense of it.

Gerry’s breath was warm against the base of his neck. He knew, Jon knew. “It’s not you we’re trying to stop, remember? You can’t stop being who you are. Even if you could, where would that leave us? He did this when he set you on this path and when…” 

“You don’t have to say it,” Jon objected. He didn’t move, but his hands trembled against his chest.

Gerry didn’t budge. “When he set me on a path that would cross yours. Back when I first found you, yes, I genuinely needed to make it better, but I don’t know how much of it was-”

“Gerry. Please,” Jon whined. 

“My point is that it wasn’t him. I’m not here because of him. I’m here because of you and because I wanted to stay with you.” Gerry was breathing quicker, sharper. “And everything that happened? That’s not something you can just compel someone to do. Not every time. My guess is that for all he can do, he failed to see the consequences of his own game. You can’t stop yourself but… you don’t have to.” Gerry sighed. “Not now.”

When he looked out, Jon saw nothing but a matt of brown hair -- his own -- and a speck of colour where Gerry’s eyes caught the morning light. It tinged the walls an indescribable shade of blue and that… that was strangely beautiful. It almost made being woken by Elias at this ungodly time worth it.

“I- um, I’m afraid too. You think I’m not terrified? Think again,” Gerry said when Jon didn’t reply. “Honestly, it’s probably a bloody terrible idea. Trying to stop Elias, taking over the Institute, all of it.” 

“And every other option is just as bad,” Jon finished for him. 

“Exactly.” 

It wasn’t exactly true. There had been other options, but with the Unknowing suddenly on hold, they all fell apart. They’d take too long to put into motion. Or were too complicated, or relied on too many variables or outside interference. None of them seemed doable now. 

No. Taking Elias out of the picture was the simplest way of achieving peace -- even if for only a little while. And what came after… all Jon Knew for certain was he would still have Gerry beside him. It had to be enough.

And then maybe… Jon would have to get in touch with Martin, ask him about some pressing matters, like the Dancer’s disappearance. Later.

Much later. 

_ Since you’re not about to stop brooding, I love you, Jon, I do, but please do it outside of my head _ , Gerry thought in his general direction, stifling a huff over the shell of Jon’s ear. _ I vote for a few more hours of sleep and then maybe I’ll have recovered enough from Elias’… mind rape, to actually get up. _

Jon wasn’t sure if it was the choice of words or the resolute tone of Gerry’s mind’s voice, but something set off a panic in him. Ignoring the weight of Gerry’s limbs and the way his muscles protested at the motion -- and the fact Gerry had asked him to stay -- Jon wriggled away. There was no resistance and he sat up on the end of the bed, lowering his head to rest on his knees.

Gerry’s blinked a couple times at him. Jon didn’t need to see to navigate his- their flat, but he didn’t pull away from Gerry’s mind. It was a comfort to just brush his thoughts every now and again. It was also a weakness. They both knew this and Jon still didn’t stop.

“Hmm, Jon? I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just… ” Gerry gave up speaking.  _ Tired, I was tired before and then the Archivist and logic and- still tired just lemme sleep a bit more. _

“I know, it’s fine. Go back to sleep, I’ll be there in a moment. I just-” he stopped and stood. There was a familiar twinge of pain in his ankle and Jon ignored it. “I really need a cigarette, so.” Not just one cigarette, he needed to smoke a whole pack to feel normal again. He wouldn’t, but the urge was there, an itch under his skin.

He had just stepped past the open doorway when Gerry groaned. “You really shouldn’t,” he said, muffled by the bedsheets and the running weariness. His thoughts were barely any clearer. “Remember what the doctor told you, about your lungs.” It was half a joke, half concern tinging his words.

It made no difference, Gerry wasn’t looking at him and Jon couldn’t see him with his own eyes, but Jon still turned. And he laughed. He sounded as tired as he felt. “I’m partly a timeless eldritch monster, I think I can have a smoke if I want to.”

 

\---

 

Jon inhaled, taking a long drag from his cigarette.

It was far too cold for the balcony and he’d settled for leaning on the kitchen wall beside the window, open just a sliver, enough that Jon wouldn’t trigger the smoke detector or make the whole flat reek. Admittedly, the latter was barely a concern, more of an idle thought that passed him by.

Outside, the rain fell with a steadiness Jon had rarely experienced outside the country. It wasn’t heavy or particularly hard and fast, but nor was it soft. It was white noise, briefly interrupted by the sound of Jon’s breaths and occasionally a siren or a car horn in the distance.  _ Morning traffic _ , Jon thought.  _ People who haven’t got the faintest clue of what we’re trying to stop.  _

It didn’t matter. Jon hadn’t done anything for the sake of recognition. Still, if one of the rituals wasn’t stopped on time -- if the Rite went ahead -- the world would change and  _ he  _ would be the cause of their fear...

He swallowed down the lump in his throat and sighed, exhaling smoke through his nose.

It was like that for a while. 

Jon didn’t really bother keeping track of time anymore. He knew it was morning -- his body knew it was morning. Besides that? It had been nice to watch the sunset with Gerry, one of the nights the rain had turned to sleet and then softened into a powdery snow. It’d been nice to move his spare room mirror into the bedroom, so he could watch himself when they touched. But that was it. 

The more Jon thought about it, the more he realised he was fine in a darkness where time meant absolutely nothing.

Well, for the most part, he was fine just smoking and listening to the world slowly awaken. All sorts of presences blinked around him, and in a way, they reminded Jon of stars: some were small and dim and distant, others large and brilliant. Jon could touch any of them if he chose to.

_ Is this what Elias feels like? The entire world at his fingertips.  _ Not his fingertips, that wasn’t right.  _ But it may as well be _ , he told himself, flicking his thumb back and forth over the cap of his lighter.  _ He could reach me now and… _

Jon shook his head. Time. He didn’t have much time, but he had this morning, at least.

It wasn’t the sound of a soft footfall that first clued him to Gerry’s presence. It was the brightness and the sudden flare of life in his vicinity. It was impossible not to notice, really. And of course, when he dove into their connection, when he used Gerry’s eyes, he noticed that Gerry was currently walking down hallway towards the kitchen. 

“Gerry?” Jon called out.

The door was already open but he felt a warm breeze from somewhere deeper inside the flat when Gerry moved closer to him. Thank God for space heaters.

“Hey,” Gerry whispered. Jon wasn't sure if he was being careful for his sake or -- more likely -- still reeling with the aftershocks of Elias’ assault. “You okay there?”

“Mm.” Jon nodded. It was enough of a truth. He was okay. “Did I wake you up? I know how much of a loud thinker I am and I didn't want to leave you alone after…” Jon gestured between them and Gerry caught his hand, stealing the little nub of cigarette he had left from between his fingers. Jon saw it happen from Gerry’s perspective and it drew a little smile out of him.

He waited and heard Gerry take a long drag. If he focused he could feel the sensation of ghostly smoke flooding his mouth. Then Gerry moved, his knuckles brushed Jon's mouth, and Jon breathed in another lungful of nicotine and tar. It wasn't great, but it was what he'd needed. It wasn’t a rush, but it was dizzying in its own way.

“Nah. I mean you are, but you didn't wake me. It's been a while so I figured I'd check on you. How many is that now?”

Jon shrugged, reaching for Gerry’s wrist so he could hold the cigarette closer to his lips. It was pretty much done, as was the pack he’d left on the windowsill.    


“Fourth one, I think. I wasn’t keeping track,” he said. “How long?”

Jon watched through Gerry as he stubbed the cigarette out and counted the rest of them in the ashtray. If he was bothered by what he found -- Jon wasn’t exactly telling the truth, but he  _ had  _ lost track -- he didn’t bring it up.

“It’s been a couple hours since the call. I told you, you didn’t wake me up.”  _ But I’d rather you’d slept next to me, _ Gerry thought and Jon felt something cramp in his chest. His heart, perhaps.

Guilt welled in him. Jon saw it in his own face. In the way his eyebrows rose slightly and his lips parted, and -- he pulled out, turning away to face the window. It wasn’t logical. He knew this. He knew Gerry wasn’t judging him -- he Knew it in every thought inside his head and yet…

“Jon. It’s fine.” 

There was a hand on his shoulder, squeezing him gently. 

“I don’t care if you want to smoke. It’d be pretty hypocritical, considering I just did, and I know you weren’t trying to get away from me.” As he spoke, Gerry’s free hand moved around him, taking the lighter from him to light what was possibly the last cigarette in the pack. “Nothing aside from fucking your lungs but hey, same here.”

“I had a lot on my mind and if I recall, you did tell me to stop brooding.” Jon opened his eyes and he saw -- grey. Not him, but close enough. Reflected in the glass, he saw them both and finally noticed just how disheveled Gerry looked. 

He’d foregone a shirt, same as Jon, actually. They stood half naked, one of Gerry’s arms lazily draped over him, staring out into the gloomy London skyline. His hair desperately needed combing, and Jon thought about running his fingers through it, smoothing the curls at its ends.    


“And If  _ I _ recall, I didn’t tell you to leave,” Gerry replied. Slightly blurry through the raindrops on the window, Jon saw his expression shift, a grin teased on his lips. “Only that, yeah, you think bloody loud.”

It seemed like a serious thing to be silly about and Jon frowned, only for Gerry to rest the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Jon tasted smoke on the tip of his tongue. Fine. He took another drag, let the tension ebb from his limbs just a little, then breathed out, fogging parts of the glass.

“If we don’t manage to stop the Rite. It it doesn’t work, then I will-”

Gerry leaned over, against him, his chest pinning Jon to the window. “No. You don’t get to say that. Not right now.” He kissed the back of his neck, and reflected, Jon saw tendrils of smoke curl over his skin.

Their eyes met, Gerry’s dark to Jon’s milky-white. It felt good. The pressure; the way Gerry’s lips moved across his shoulder blades and every so often, he’d come up to take a drag, blowing it out across Jon’s back. Jon had the choice to move away, to protest. And honestly, right now he’d… rather not have that choice. He’d prefer it. 

So, for a while, they pretended.

“If I’m gone, I want you to keep the flat,” Jon said all of a sudden. He didn’t know how long it’d been or why the idea had come to him. The cigarette was still lit and Gerry was still-  _ had  _ still been kissing him.

“Jon,” Gerry warned. He lifted his head and nipped Jon’s earlobe, taking it into his mouth and sucking on the sensitive flesh. 

“Just because you don’t want to consider the possibil- fuck-” Jon hissed when Gerry bit down harder. 

_ What you need is some rest, not to think you’re about to die. We can discuss all of this -- all over again -- after. Later. Not now.  _ Jon heard the thought and despite the slight ache running across his face, down his jawline, Gerry’s mind sounded… apologetic and sad? He looked up, but all he saw was a pale swathe of his own skin.

“I’m just worried,” Jon said just as he heard a softly breathed  _ please _ , and that could’ve been either in his head or directly into his ear, Jon couldn’t tell for sure. “I don’t particularly want to think about unleashing worldwide fear. But what choice do I have?” Jon wheezed, mouth snapping shut. “Christ, I’m sorry,” he added a moment later.

“Stop apologising! I should be the one doing that.” 

Gerry manoeuvred him so that they faced each other. He couldn’t see Gerry’s face like this, but he saw himself -- it wasn’t a pretty sight, he didn’t think so. 

“You didn’t really hurt me.”

“That’s not the point, Jon. The point is, I’m sorry. You need to sleep and we both need to figure out what we’re going to do. But not right now. Okay?”

Jon knew Gerry was right. He’d been running on fumes -- literally, as it turned out -- for the past couple of hours, still trying to understand how everything had gone from bad but fine, to ruin in a matter of a couple words from Elias. 

When Jon nodded, Gerry tugged him closer, tilting his head until their foreheads touched. Gerry’s breath tickled his lips and they parted automatically, only to receive a mouthful of smoke directly from Gerry’s lungs.

Startled, Jon tried to step back, but was caught by an arm around his waist and a soft, if bitter sounding chuckle. 

“You utter-” was all Jon had the time to say, before Gerry kissed him properly and he promptly lost track of time again.

It wasn’t very long, but it was long enough that Jon forgot what he’d been trying to say. By then, he also Knew the source of Gerry’s pain. It was a lie he told himself and the fear that he might be wrong, that they would lose this. Still, he chose to be optimistic that he had a choice and the least Jon could do was indulge that. 

“I’m not going to keep the flat,” Gerry said after they pulled apart. “Because you’re not going anywhere.”

Jon forced himself to smile -- it was easier than he’d led himself to believe -- and hoped.

“Right, bed then? I believe you promised to carry me.”

Gerry’s laughter was a lovely sound.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon meets a monster.

There was a ringing in Jon’s head and he couldn’t figure it out. He shifted around, rooting through the sheets like it might help him recognise it and -- oh, he wasn’t asleep. Reflexively, he blinked his eyes open, trying to discern anything through the enveloping shadows. Then it dawned on him how pointless that was. It was always dark, that wasn't going to change. 

Time and time again, this was how he'd wake up: disorientated and bewildered for a split second before it all came crashing down. It did make the lingering grogginess a little harder to shake off. He opened his mouth, a name on the tip of his tongue, then closed it again. His jaw clenched hard and Jon wheezed softly. 

After the hospital, after drugs had stopped being pumped into him, he'd started struggling with this: the moment before true awareness, when the memories of his torture gripped him and panic flooded his veins. When his heart pulsed so hard and fast in his chest he thought it might explode outwards. 

The sheer terror usually left him after a couple seconds, but sometimes, Jon would teeter on the edge of that blade until Gerry soothed him. 

“Jon? Shit.” 

Next to him, the mattress squeaked. Jon rolled on his side, all instinct as he curled up and flinched. 

The sheets trapped his feet and for an instant, he was so sure he was back in the forest, still trapped, still at the Hunt's mercy, or lack of it. Then Gerry touched the soft spot between his neck and shoulder and Jon immediately knew it was him. He felt it in the familiarity of his mind, aware of the nooks and crannies of Gerry’s mind. 

Jon pushed inside tentatively and caught sight of Gerry staring down at him, then at the mirror on the wall, a worried expression on his face. He was paler than usual, though Jon wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to consider it. 

Some days were just this bad. Jon blamed it on Elias. All of it. 

He tried to nod and when that failed, he twined their thoughts, pushing his fear into Gerry, showing him what he felt. It wasn't so much sharing the pain as catching a drift of the loop that streamed Gerry’s reassurance and love and caring attention back at him. It was followed by the tips of fingers carding through his hair and lips brushing the bridge of his nose. 

“Any better?” Gerry asked him, his thumb stroking lines over Jon's scalp. “I only got up for a moment or two. I really should have figured that was when you'd finally wake up.” He sounded about as amused as Jon felt. 

“Pillow,” Jon managed to croak, sighing with relief as Gerry obeyed and shoved both their pillows under his head and back. 

This helped him right himself without the terrible knowing he was as helpless as -- well, something soft and inherently harmless, like a kitten before realising it had curved dagger claws. He didn't need the crutch, but he clung to it anyway and, between their heads, he thanked Gerry for it. 

_ Take your time, _ Gerry though back at him. _ I'm right here. Not going anywhere.  _

Once upright, Jon fought back the sudden urge to yawn, opening his mouth wide and --

“It's fine now,” he managed to say between taking in huge gulps of air. It didn't help but it made him feel like he wasn't about to drown anymore. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” Gerry made a sound that was a bit like a cross between a chuckle and a cough. Again, there was no amusement. “I went to get your phone from the living room and got caught up in a conver- Right, from the beginning. One of your assistants called while you were asleep.”

“What?” Jon struggled to sit up straighter. “Which one? Was it Martin? Did he know something about the Dancer? Is he alright? Is Tim alright?” 

Gerry’s fingertips touched the meat of his shoulder and the pressure kept him grounded, from trying to jump off the bed and pacing the room. It worked to still his body. His mind… not so much. He felt his awareness stretch against his conscious will, blanketing the both of them.

_ Is Tim alright?  _ he repeated.  _ Did he survive? He had to have done, I know he did. Is he fine? How did they get to the Dancer? How did they avoid Elias? Is there something I don't Know? Why is that so terrifying?  _

“One question at a time. I'm not going to be able to answer anything if you keep doing that with your mind,” Gerry said. Then his hand dug into Jon’s skin as he flagged. “ Jesus, Jon. I can barely hear myself speak over all those thoughts. If you give me a moment I can actually- Jon!”

The need to Know grew in him. It was coupled with a fledgling idea that Jon couldn’t believe was his: He could just take it. He didn’t have to ask. He could simply delve into Gerry’s mind and pluck the information he needed and there was nothing Gerry could do to stop him and Jon wasn’t sure he could stop himself and it hurt.

“Stop. It.” Gerry grunted, biting the inside of his mouth until the sharp pain bled back into Jon; until he tasted the blood on his own tongue. It jolted him back to the part of him that wasn’t as ravenous. 

Jon deflated, exhaling through his nose as he slumped back on the pillows. He swallowed down against the sensation of liquid trickling down his chin, then reached one hand to wipe the trail of blood from Gerry’s face. “I didn’t mean to… sorry,” he said. “There’s just…”

“A lot on your mind? Trust me, I know.” Gerry shifted on the bed, parting his knees around Jon’s thighs. His weight was a comfortable and comforting presence in Jon’s lap, holding him down. Had it been so bad this time? Probably. “As for the questions… “ He paused and Jon heard his pulse drum steadily in the back of his head. “Martin Blackwood, right? And there was someone else with him. I assume that was Tim. Sounded angry enough, anyway.”

“Was Martin- what was he like? Was he…” Jon didn’t even know what he was trying to ask. Had he destroyed --  _ sacrificed  _ \-- his assistants the way Gertrude had? Jon wanted… he needed to know; needed to listen to the conversation play out rather than being told about it, and he refused to give in to that monstrous part of him.

“Are you going to let me finish?” Gerry interrupted his thoughts. Jon looked up and saw nothing at all. “Hard to tell through the phone, but they seemed fine. There wasn’t any of the static you get when talking to an entity, so. Martin wanted to talk to you, but you were asleep and I wasn’t about to wake you after… this hellish morning.”

“You could have woken me.”

“Sure, but then you wouldn’t be asleep.” Jon heard him huff and he felt it his breath tickle his jaw.  “And no, I’m not going to apologize. You needed to rest. Still do, but I’m guessing we aren’t going to get much more of that for now.”

“What-”

“Jon, just let me bloody tell you, okay?  After I’m done you can ask all the questions I know you need to ask me, but for now…” Gerry lifted two fingers to Jon’s lips and he fell silent. 

There was a moment or two during which Jon wasn’t sure if there was something else hanging between them that had nothing to do with words. If Gerry was holding back or if Jon hadn’t somehow reined in the avalanche of thoughts from tainting their connection. 

_ You don’t have to worry about that, _ but that wasn’t him, either, and the Archivist was a fleeting, though hungry presence lurking in the back of his mind.  

Then Gerry nodded, their noses touching in a kiss of sorts, and he continued. “So it seems that after his defeat this morning, your boss- ex-boss, got in touch with Martin and asked them to come in.”

“Did they?” 

“Of course not. And you're still interrupting,” Gerry said. “That's why he wanted to talk to you. Apparently he's also got in touch with someone who would very much enjoy to see Elias fall. No, don't bother asking. I don't know who it is and Martin wouldn't tell me over the phone. I think that's for the best, really.”

It made sense, and yet… “How did they know?”

“About our plans? It's really not a stretch to think you'd want to get revenge on the guy who threw you to the wolves and went all mindfuck on you. On both of us, I should add. Besides, you're not the only one who's got feelers out there. You do it with your mind, it's not a stretch to imagine they heard it through other means.” 

“You said they sounded human.”

“Martin and Tim? Yeah they did. But you sound human and earlier you were just telling me how much your eldritch monster needed a cig, so. I can be wrong or there's someone -- some _ thing _ else involved. I have no idea.”

Neither did Jon. If he hadn't been asleep, he might have been able to look inside Martin's mind through Gerard’s, now all he could do was wonder. Maybe if he focused all of his power he might have been able to locate Martin and Know it from afar. Jon wasn't sure, he'd never tried it, and he wasn't Elias. 

He sighed, leaning his face on Gerry’s. “I should get back to them, then,” Jon said. “ What do you think?” He pressed the flat of his palm against Gerry's chest. “You've been a part of this world for so much longer than I have. ”

Jon felt heat curl in Gerry’s belly when he deferred to his knowledge, to his experience, and it only fuelled his decision to keep doing so. He liked it and Jon liked it in return.

“The enemy of your enemy is your friend is bullshit. Whoever wants Elias down could easily want the same for you,” he said. “That said, as far as I know, the Eye is a bit of an outlier, not many of the others want to be watched, and it’s not about to bring any of them through with the rite. Maybe the Web would disagree with me. The rest? Any of them has reasons to want to stop it. With the Unknowing out of the way, the Desolation might want it's payback? I dunno.”

Memories of his last encounter with a member of the Lightless Flame fleeted through his mind and he grimaced. It was difficult not to contemplate how stupid he’d been to trust Jude Perry. Now those burns were just a few more scars of the many covering his body; just a tiny portion of his story.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s likely and I don’t particularly want to get involved with them, either,” Gerry said, and there was a softness in his tone. “From all you’ve told me about your assistants, it doesn’t seem like Martin would trust the flame. But other than that, any of the powers could be sticking their fingers in this pie and we’d be none the wiser.”

_ Or you could look, and simply see for yourself. _

Jon shook his head and bits of his fringe flopped over his eyelids. He’d need another trim soon. Maybe he’d get Gerry to shave his head, for all he cared about his appearance when there were so many endless, world-ending things to worry about.

“And we can’t refuse the help.”

“I mean, we could, but I dunno how smart that’d be, especially since it sounded like Martin trusted them.”

“What about Tim?” Jon couldn’t quite imagine Tim trusting anyone, especially anyone who wasn’t Martin -- going by their latest interaction. 

“I…” Gerry stopped like he’d just noticed something. Jon heard him click his tongue. “I didn’t talk to Tim, actually. I heard him, sure -- I’m pretty sure it was him -- but Martin was the one I spoke to.”

“After the last time, I’m surprised either of them would want to speak with me.” Jon’s head lolled back and he forced a breath of air from his lips. He craved another cigarette and he was fairly sure they’d ran out earlier. That metallic taste of blood still coated his mouth. “I fucked up.”

“Jon.”

“I did.”

“Maybe,” Gerry said. “You did a really shitty thing and maybe you had absolutely no choice. Besides, it's not like it’ll matter if the world as we know it ends.” Then he added, “they know it too.”   
  
No, Jon guessed it wouldn’t and that Martin -- hopefully Tim, too -- had to know he hadn’t… he wouldn’t have done it if there was any other option.

Maybe.

“Right.” Jon had heard just about enough. Aside from a lingering sense of dread and impending doom that coiled snake-like in his stomach, there was no reason not to act already. “Where’s my phone?” 

“It’s here. Just wait a sec,” Gerry replied. He tugged on both of Jon’s shoulders, until they sort of slumped together in a tangled heap of limbs. Gerry was mostly above him, but there was a hand behind his back and- Jon stopped keeping track when fingers brushed his back. He stopped thinking.

For a while, no words passed between them. They didn’t need them to communicate: not with sentences or even thoughts but images and feelings. This wasn’t it, it wasn’t the end -- but it could be. Neither was certain Elias wouldn’t put himself together and counter this shitty plan, but it was better than inaction. And that…

Jon wasn’t ready. He couldn’t be. And once again, he had no alternative. No choice.

Gerry kissed him and Jon heard himself moan inside Gerry’s head. He felt both their pleasure at once, tingling over his skin, running down from the base of his spine, reaching between his legs. Jon didn’t resist, he didn’t want to. He enjoyed this and the fact Gerry did too… only made it better. 

Gerry touched him all over. His fingers stroked lines down Jon’s abdomen and the top of his legs, until his fear dissipated and was replaced by a blissful daze. At some point, Jon was moved over to lay on bed and there was hair splayed on his legs. He didn’t understand, not until Gerry buried his face between Jon’s thighs and- oh.

Oh.

He heard his cries as heard by Gerry and it was the duality of every touch, every sound -- of  every sensation no matter how small -- that finally pushed him over the edge. Jon didn’t even realise he was arching up until he collapsed back on the mattress, sweat rolling down the planes of his muscles, down his abdomen and his sides. Next to him, Gerry stretched and Jon knew he was just as spent.

“That wasn’t the phone,” Jon murmured once his voice returned to him. 

“I wanted to. Did you, uh, enjoy yourself?”

Jon snorted.  _ What sort of question is that? _ he thought, and Gerry chuckled back at him. 

_ Just making sure, _ he heard quietly in the silence that settled between them. _ I don’t want to do something you’re not okay with. _

_ If I wasn’t, you’d know.  _ Then he pushed the idea -- the emotion -- that he loved his big idiotic goth partner in Gerry’s direction, and… the laughter really was wonderful. Although perhaps not as wonderful as the way Gerry lifted one arm towards him and pulled them together, side by side. 

“Shower then you can call?” he asked.  _ And I love you too, my little eldritch monster.  _ It sounded ridiculous even in his mind.

A smile stretched across Jon’s lips. “Sounds good to me.”

 

\---

 

Southampton was only about two hours from London on a train. And that was two hours longer than Jon would’ve liked to spend cramped in a carriage with a bunch of teenagers. Not only were their high pitched voices extremely loud, but the sheer volume of blinking presences gave him a headache within five minutes of the train’s departure.

More than once, Jon caught glimpse-whispers of strange thoughts, of ideas that were so absurd he had to force himself not to scowl or burst out laughing, or get up and leave the carriage. He would’ve been fine ignoring the noise, he really would, except he couldn’t sit down and there was barely enough space for him to lean on Gerry’s shoulder without accidentally knocking over some kid.

Jon counted down the minutes. It wasn’t a torture he’d wish on his worst enemy -- except Elias. The moment they arrived, he was close enough to the doors that he slipped through as soon as they opened, dragging Gerry’s arm behind him. 

As soon as he stepped outside, Jon found himself breathing the crisp seaside air like he'd been deprived of it and next to him, he felt Gerry’s joy, too. 

It had been a while. 

“I would rather die”, he stated, very matter-of-factly, squeezing Gerry’s palm between his fingers, “than go through that again.”

“Dramatic.”

Making use of Gerry’s vision Jon looked out and.. the station was busy, but it was a Saturday afternoon and they'd expected that. He noticed that the sky had started to darken at the edges. It didn't mean much, sunset happened awfully early in the Winter, but he'd hoped for… more sunlight, perhaps. 

Jon tugged Gerry closer to him, resting his head on the top of Gerry’s arm as the shadows, the wreck of his own eyes, claimed him back. 

“Jesus, Gerry, they were teenagers. Five minutes longer and I think I'd have compelled them out.” Jon knew he wouldn't have, but the urge had definitely been there. 

“I didn't say I disagreed,” Gerry replied, tucking one arm around Jon's waist. There were a few stares, Jon felt them burning on the back of his head, an uncomfortable itch in his skull. “I don't remember being that bad.” To which Jon reminded him, an image of a memory of the very first time they'd met.” Okay, no that's not true. Fuck. ”

“Did I ever tell you that after that night and for a while after, I had the biggest crush on the mysterious stranger who saved my life?”

“What, really?” 

“Hmmm.” Jon nodded. “Really. Which reminds me. I never asked you why you left the coat behind.”

Gerry stopped for a moment and Jon stopped with him, still holding on to his hand. One quick outwards glance and he saw there was a queue to exit the station. Predictable. But at least they were early enough that a little delay wouldn't matter. 

When Gerry replied, it was as a thought rather than words. It was harder for him to communicate like this, the picture he painted wasn't as clear as Jon's had been. Jon felt his frustration and he tilted his head to kiss Gerry’s cheek. They were surrounded by a crowd, Jon could hear them, he could hear the gasps and words that probably weren't even directed at them, and he ignored them. It wasn't like he could see them. 

What he saw instead was… it was how Gerry remembered that night, nearly two decades earlier. It was blurry and disjointed, as if it'd been shot by an ancient camera. He saw himself through the lenses of a young Gerry’s eyes and he felt his concern, the worry that this kid might die because of him. There was something else there, an invisible pull that even now Jon couldn't quite put into words. 

When Gerry had left the coat, it was because he'd known it was the right thing to do. And that… 

Jon gasped softly and clung to Gerry’s side, tugging on his sleeve just so he could smell the leather.

“When it vanished, was that you, too?”

“From Leitners to sneaking in the evidence room in the dark of night, all for my stylish coat.” Gerry laughed, and all traces of tension left his voice. 

“When you put it like that, it does sound silly.”

“I have no idea what happened to it. Presumably a cop really wanted to turn goth and took it home?” 

It was Jon's turn to laugh. The sound surprised him with how loud and how real it was, erupting from his chest in great guffaws. Chances were he sounded crazy and that it drew even more attention to them. But Gerry remained unconcerned -- though he felt his amusement -- and Jon was far too busy remembering what it'd been like, that life-changing night. 

He'd met Gerry and he'd waited for him ever since? Yeah, that was weird. 

“Come on, Jon. Almost out of here,” Gerry said a little later, running his knuckles over Jon's back when the laughter turned into coughing.

They stopped at a small coffee place down the street just so Gerry could get him some water, a coffee for himself, and a smoke for later. It was overpriced garbage by London standards -- and they weren't even in London -- and Jon almost walked out. He would've walked out if it weren't for the hand around his and the way Gerry squeezed his waist. And the fact that it was pleasantly warm inside.

The smell of fresh baked bread and the dull buzz of a TV nearby reminded him… of other times. Of living in Bournemouth. Of not having to worry about the possible apocalypse. 

“Actually being here makes it… pretty obvious” Gerry said once they'd walked out, mouthing around the butt of his unlit cigarette. “Ugh, I should've seen it coming.” 

“Hmm?” Jon hadn't noticed he'd gone for the lighter until Gerry took it from him. 

A moment later, Jon tasted smoke on his tongue. It was as dark and heavy as he remembered, its weight settling in his lungs. He sighed and his breath mingled with the cold winter’s breeze, with the smell of salt that hung in the air.

“The fifth wheel in our double date. The wonderful stranger who wants to help stop Elias? I know who it is. Well, I'm pretty sure of it,” Gerry said. At Jon’s disgruntled noise, he added, “It is a date, I told you- stop giving me that face.”

Jon’s wasn’t sure he needed Gerry’s eyes to see the face he was making. “Meeting with Martin and Tim does not equal a date. Especially not a double date,” he pointed out, biting back a forcibly pained groan. He felt his skin tighten around his temples. “In fact, that’s more than I ever wanted to think about their love life, Christ.”

_ What? No secret burning desire for a foursome?  _ “Relax, I’m just teasing you.” 

Jon knew that, of course he did. The joke was just Gerry’s way of soothing him. But it didn’t stop him from sputtering, heat flooding his cheeks, or from jabbing one finger in Gerry’s chest. “Very funny.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“I-” Jon stopped. If only there was a mirror nearby he would've been able to look into Gerry’s eyes and understand what he'd meant by that. It had worked to annoy him a bit, certainly. “What?”

“You were thinking about it again. Him.” Gerry hissed as an image of Elias flashed between them. “The future.”  _ All of it _ , he heard. “There's… if you start thinking about everything, you're never going to stop.”

It wasn't a lie. 

From the moment he had agreed to Martin's suggestion of meeting here, well, there had been too many things running through his mind to keep track of all at once. Not including the fact it'd just clicked like a piece of a puzzle Jon hadn't known he'd been assembling -- that Gerry was… whatever he really was to him. 

In love with him? Sure, he didn't have to convince himself of that -- he didn’t want to, either. And he didn't doubt the honesty of the emotions that passed through them. 

Soulmate, though, seemed like a word -- a concept -- too ridiculous to even think about. Jon could barely bear its weight in his head, or the intensity it branded into his mind.

“Jon?” 

“Difficult not to think about it, considering the past year and… now,” Jon replied, blowing out a little sigh from his lips. “I didn't mean to overwhelm or worry you. Though I suppose you did deserve it, bringing that up.”

“You didn't. Overwhelm me, I mean,” Gerry said and when he squeezed Jon's hand, Jon squeezed it back. “It's still a date. Which does remind me, it's probably the Lukases -- not that I’d want to date one. That…” Gerry paused. “That came out awkwardly.”

A sliver of confusion jolted through him at the same time Gerry pulled on his arm, guiding him up what felt like stairs. One step at a time. “I have no idea what you just-”

“The Lonely patrons, have you heard of them?” 

The Lonely wasn’t always how Jon had thought of that specific entity. Isolation, perhaps, seemed a far better fitting word.

Jon’s fingers curled around a freezing cold rail and he tried not to perceive too far down the road. It was easier said than done. There were familiar presences on the threshold of his awareness, in distance, and they beckoned him like a moth to a flame, so tantalizing close and-

_ Almost there.  _ Jon's heartbeat wracked through him. If it wasn’t for Gerry’s distraction, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold back. No- more than that. If it wasn’t for Gerry, he would’ve never made it this far at all.

“I have… recorded a few statements that involved them. I've never met any, if that's what you meant,” Jon admitted. “I don't exactly try to make a hobby of meeting eldritch creatures and all.”

“Not a very pleasant hobby, that,” Gerry agreed. Jon heard him take a drag, inhaling and exhaling a few times in a row. “As far as I’m aware, some of them are into the whole shipping business, and given we’re in one of the biggest ports in the country… well, it’s kinda obvious.” 

“Why the Lukases, though?”

“Last I heard, back during my time following Gertrude around, they were close to the institute. But I don’t think that the rite would be bringing the Lonely through, so that’s probably enough of a big deal to want to shut it down until they can finish preparing for their own ritual.” Whatever that was, Jon didn’t need to know yet. “Other than that, it’s just a guess. That and I’ve seen a few Lonely marked people around. It seems likely.”

It made sense and all Jon could think about was how much of the rest of his life would be spent chasing the powers and stopping the end of the world over and over again. Probably all of it. But at least that meant he’d have Gerry with him.

If they failed...

If they failed to stop Elias. There would be nothing to think about. He’d be nothing -- nothing but the Archivist. “We’re almost there,” Jon said. He held on tightly to Gerry’s arm. “I’m not sure who it is, but I can feel something. I-”

“Be careful,” Gerry whispered against the side of his head. 

What Jon saw was… not a void. It looked like one. It certainly felt like a lack of something, even if he couldn’t quite conceptualise it. He had no idea how it was possible to miss a thing he’d never noticed was gone. That’s wasn’t what it felt like, either. It was, he thought, a pretty crude approximation. The entity -- creature, monster -- he touched was... a surface from which every emotion had been stripped and reshaped and glued back, all for one single purpose: to serve the Lonely.

Jon could barely comprehend it. It wasn’t at all like Elias. Even with the Archivist’s sight, Elias had been able to pretend, he’d seemed… maybe not normal, but close enough. Jon wouldn’t have noticed the creature under Elias’ skin if he hadn’t known what to look for.

This wasn’t it. This wasn’t pretending. 

He swayed by Gerry’s side. “It’s right here,” he said, maybe gasped, Jon wasn’t entirely sure, and a lightheadedness stretched through him. It was so close to him. Too close.

“Yeah, I can see him. Come on.”

There was music, thrumming loudly from every direction. It vibrated under Jon’s feet and with each step, he felt himself slip a little closer to that obscenely  _ huge _ presence and--

“Jon,” he heard Gerry, felt him mouth the words against his skin. “Jon, it’s fine. You need to stop looking, though. Not many of them take kindly to the Eye.”

It was a pretty random place as far as meeting places went. Just another pub with a live band on Saturday night, playing some sort of music Jon didn’t recognize. If he had to guess, he’d probably call it folk and accept he was wrong. 

They waited for him, sat around a table in the corner. Tim was there, as was Martin, though he saw neither of them. It was better this way. He could’ve peeked through Gerry’s mind, the temptation was there… but Jon didn’t look -- he didn’t even have to do that to feel their minds collide with his own and -- yeah he had to stop doing that, didn’t he? 

Swallowing down the anxiety, he pulled away, ensuring that his own powers remained firmly locked inside of his head and -- partly -- Gerry’s head too. 

Chairs scraped the wooden floor, though Jon only realised they were being moved for him until Gerry gently lowered himself beside him. He tugged on Jon’s fingers and all of a sudden he was sat down, surrounded by voices. Not foreign, not all of them, but it didn’t do much to quieten his panic.

“It seems our Archivist enjoys being fashionably late,” Jon heard someone he didn’t recognise. It sounded, well, human. Or human enough to pass as such. “Peter Lukas, at your service.”

A palm slid across his, closing over his hand. Jon hadn’t felt himself move, but he was glad for the Archivist’s service if it meant he didn’t awkwardly decline a handshake. Besides, the least he had to think about consciously touching Peter, the better. 

“Maybe... um, I think we should all introduce ourselves?” That was definitely Martin. A lump sunk in Jon’s stomach. “I mean, I know you Tim, and Peter, but… Oh, I’m Martin, by the way.”

Tim groaned. 

Gerry shot Jon what could only be considered a pained look, only instead of his eyes, he used his mind and his feelings. He wasn’t good with this either -- not entirely -- Jon knew that, he felt it. “Gerard Keay,” Gerry said. “ I spoke to you on the phone that afternoon?”

“Oh, when Jon was asleep, that was you? I think I read about you, I thought you had-”

“You know what, fuck this. I'm going to get another drink. I know I'll need it,” Tim interrupted him, and Jon felt his presence flicker as he stood and walked off. 

“I'm sorry about that,” Martin muttered, he sounded upset though whether it was about Tim's departure or something else, Jon couldn't tell. Not without delving into his brain and… he wasn't going to do that. “Tim is…” 

“Not why we're here,” Jon finished for him and immediately cursed his tone. Much more quietly, barely a whisper over the noise, he added, “I'm… I'm sorry Martin.”

Under the table, he felt Gerry’s hand slip over his thigh, squeezing it gently. There was no going back from what he'd done or what had been done to him. And all Jon wanted in that moment was to run away or sink into Gerry’s arms and forget the world. Selfish really. He knew he couldn't. 

“It's okay, I'm just… Peter's why we're here, so.”

“I admit, if I may of course, that I had expected something else. What can I say, Elias saw something in you and he wasn't wrong, was he? I'd not be here otherwise. Still, I thought he'd find someone more like him. I'm sure he's very disappointed.” There was a short, gruff laugh that was more static than sound. 

Jon couldn't keep himself from scowling in the direction of Peter's voice. “He should be. For all he sees, he failed to foresee the consequences of his own actions.”

“Certainly, which is precisely what I was waiting for,” Peter said. There must've been bottles already on the table before their arrive because Jon heard him take a swig from… something. 

“Gerry- Gerard said you and Elias worked together. What happened?” 

A couple things happened at once, then. Peter sighed a heavy, resigned sigh with only a hint of malice circling underneath. Gerry tensed, clawing at the meat of Jon's leg just as a volume of thoughts entered his head and-

_ I hadn't meant to try to compel him!  _

“Now that's the Archivist I expected.” Another sigh and Jon flattened his back against the chair. Peter seemed to notice, though, because he heard him rumble from deep in his chest, thick with amusement. “Oh you don't need to fear me, I'm just surprised it actually worked. Elias tried it on me a couple times but of course his talents are of… a different kind, let's say.”

Next to him, Gerry relaxed and after a moment, so did Jon. He wasn't sure about Martin and that was both a blessing and a curse -- guilt coursed through him and there wasn't much he could do about that now. 

“So you did work with him?”

“Oh yes, for a long time now. I'm sure he'd be able to see this meeting himself if there weren't certain things keeping him busy,” Peter replied and Jon almost asked about that too. Almost. “He's always been keen and willing to do what it takes. And that's a great thing when it takes hundreds of years to get to the point we're at now. So we allied. The Vast did too, I'm sure you've heard of them. The Fairchilds?”

Jon nodded. 

“The Stranger being defeated so soon has thrown a wrench in everyone's plans. It left us in a precarious situation and I'm not even going to guess what the Flesh and the Desolation are thinking right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticising, I've never been a fan of them.” He stopped and the tension shattered. “You really should thank these… well, Martin here for all he's done.” 

There was some sort of movement to his left and Martin squeaked. Had Peter just thrown one arm over his shoulders? “Uh, it was… it was nothing really.”

“Thank you,” Jon said. It wasn't enough, it didn't feel like it was enough. “ I mean it, Martin.” He did. 

“You've got a thanks from me as well,” Gerry said. “ I've had my share of close calls with those freaks.” He shuddered. Jon felt it in his bones, his knees especially. 

“It- it really was nothing, Gerard. Not nothing, but uh, it wasn't like we could  _ not  _ do it. And we had help.”

Gerry smiled and Jon allowed himself a brief glimpse at the scene as it had been moments earlier, fresh in Gerry’s memory. Martin looked better than Jon had imagined. He was slightly red faced, which contrasted starkly with the almost unnatural paleness of Peter's skin next to him. 

“Just call me Gerry, please.”

Martin started to reply and that was when Tim decided to return. He was loud -- so absurdly loud that even without touching his presence, Jon sensed his anger as a burning red star. It made him retreat deeper within himself, tucked away into the depths of his mind.

“Now that we're all buddy-buddies, can we actually get something done? Oops, sorry I forgot, gotta make sure we're all properly hammered before making any world-changing decisions,” Tim hissed and Jon couldn't tell if he was slurring the words on purpose or not. 

Bottles clinked on the table. Seconds later, the cool, sturdy handle of a pint glass slid across Jon's fingers. Cold and firm. He could- should have pointed out he didn't drink, that he didn't enjoy Budweiser or Carlsberg, or that, well, the smell of beer reminded him of being ill. 

Instead, Jon lifted the pint to his face. 

“Tim, you didn't have to…”

Tim's entire presence softened for Martin, his voice quieter, gentle almost. It was like he'd just donned a mask -- or moulted the arsehole persona, whichever. “I'm sure Jon needs a drink as much as the rest of us”, Tim said. He sounded surprisingly honest.

“I'm sure I do,” Jon managed to reply, lips stretched over the rim of his glass. 

It was probably true. Sadly, it didn't keep him from grimacing when the sour, lukewarm-ish beer flooded his mouth. Or when it rushed down his throat and he had to fight the sudden urge to gag and retch. To say it tasted foul felt like a offensive understatement to his taste buds.

_ Don't force yourself, I'll finish it for you, _ he heard Gerry say with a quiet chuckle. 

He had maybe a moment to consider Tim's practical joke or Gerry’s offer before the Archivist snapped him back into awareness. Peter was talking. Next to him, Gerry sat up straighter. 

“I'm surprised you've not been taken already. All that delightful destructive anger burning inside like a beacon… seems like it would suit some of us well,” Peter said and Jon realised after a moment that it wasn't directed at him. 

“I'm not a bloody thing to be fought over,” Tim growled in the way of a reply. The sound of a heavy glass being slammed on the table rung in Jon's ears. “I'm done with that.” Beside him, Martin made a noise somewhere between a whimper and an outright sob and Jon almost reached out for the both of them.

It was his fault. 

It was a bit like witnessing a part of a drama he'd not been aware of before. A still frame in a movie, or a window into something Jon knew he shouldn't be seeing. 

“Of course not, and that's not why any of us is here. If I were, let's say  _ recruiting _ , I would have been hard pressed with any of you. What happened to you Martin? To that wonderful loneliness in you, I wonder?” Peter sighed. “It doesn't matter. I'm here for one reason only, as I've told your Archivist already.”

“He's not  _ my  _ Archivist.”

“Maybe, but without him, I can’t imagine any of us would be capable of stopping Elias. Save for using brute force and even then… “ Peter trailed off, humming softly in a rhythm, a song Jon didn't recognise. 

Jon had honestly no idea how he might be able to stop Elias, with or without the Archivist. With help, all he had managed was to momentarily divert him, to push him back, maybe the equivalent of kicking him away, but that was it...

“Um, you said we'd need to take him away from the institute, right?” It was Martin who asked. 

“He's a great deal more powerful in that building, yes. But you needn't worry about how to lure him out. I've done the institute my fair share of favours, as has the rest of my family. If not me directly, one of us will be soon letting him know of a time and place where to discuss our… arrangements.

“I don’t doubt he’ll be suspicious. Eh, I would invite him to the Tundra, if I didn't think he'd see right through me.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Jon said in the kind of voice that made Martin gasp from across the table. He was the Archivist, then. “If you can drag him out of his lair, I can ensure he’ll follow. As for the rest…” Jon shrugged, rolling his shoulders in a motion that hadn’t been his.

“The rest is up to you, Archivist.”

“And if he fails? If he can’t do it?” 

Gerry’s hand curled to a fist on his thigh, knuckles pressing into his denim-clad skin. It wasn’t something Jon enjoyed thinking about. Of course not. Though if it came down to it, he- he couldn’t think it, not with the Archivist reading his every thought.

_ You won’t fail. You can’t. _

“There are contingency measures in place. If the Archivist fails and the rite goes ahead... I’m sure I don’t have to explain the kind of position it would put my family, or any of you.”

It wasn’t something he had really thought about before. He’d always known it, since Clara and the Hunt, but to hear it in Peter’s tone, that the other powers could fear -- though that wasn’t the right word, dislike maybe? -- the Beholding as much as he did, that made a terrifying amount of sense.

“We already stopped one ritual,” Tim’s voice cracked slightly, the words breaking together. “In other words, you can’t fail or you’ll die. And then we all die, or worse than that. You get it? You have no choice. None of us has any fucking choice.”

“And uh, no one is going to die,” Martin said, a lot more subdued than he’d been a minute earlier. “Remember what we said?”

Tim whistled, wheezing out a very long breath. Jon smelled alcohol -- something stronger than beer, anyway -- in the air around him. “Yes, yes I do remember, Martin."

“Which would be preferable for us as well. It’s very difficult to harness any sort of emotion out of corpses,” Peter commented so casually that it made Jon’s skin crawl. Now, there was something he never had wanted to hear. “And you would be lucky to suffer a quick death, were the rite to succeed.”

There must’ve been something on his face, on his expression, because though he hadn’t broadcasted the thoughts, Gerry seemed to sense his unease. He reached around Jon’s waist and pulled him close, until their elbows touched and Jon could just let go and rest his head on the top of Gerry’s shoulder. 

“Right,” Gerry muttered. He was clipped short by a weariness Jon felt deep inside of himself, too. “You get him out of the Magnus Institute, ambush and bring him here. We’ll do the rest.” 

“Oh, are you staying? We’ve got a room nearby and uh, I mean if you’ve not reserved anything I don’t mind if we share or something, I’m not sure if Tim-” Martin started. Jon wasn’t sure if what stopped him was his horrified gasp or Tim’s. 

They had planned to return to London tonight. Jon didn’t think he was ready to take on Elias just yet, but it would certainly make things more straightforward, easier… maybe. “I don’t think- Gerry you- did you?”

_ I can get us a room somewhere nearby if you want?  _ he heard Gerry’s clearly in his head.  _ I’m not sure I want to share with them, though. _

Jon agreed.

“Oh, I didn’t realise you two were-” Martin paused. “Congrats Jon!” 

If Jon had never wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere and die, which he had before, he certainly felt that way now. His cheeks were definitely growing pinker by the second. He felt heat slip up his spine as his stomach throbbed with a kind of ache that could only be derived from embarrassment. He looked away, turning to bury his face in the flap of Gerry’s coat, and presumed Martin did something similar for all he felt his and Tim’s presences… move closer together.

“Thanks,” that was Gerry, somehow maintaining a cool head when Jon literally wanted nothing more than to vanish into the depths of the earth and become one with the floor. 

_ It’s fine, I’m fine. We’re fine. _

There was so much he could tell Martin that he would never be able to. The entire story of his kidnapping by the Hunt and timely rescue by Gerry, the hospital -- everything. It wouldn’t happen, but it could have. In another lifetime, maybe.

Peter was the one who broke the short-lived silence. “Aren’t you all little bundles of joy. It makes me sick, it really does,” he said. Jon didn’t have to imagine the smirk on his lips, or the crease in the corners of his too-pale eyes. “I suppose I should get going, I’ve got places to be before I get to sail again, don’t I? Though I gotta say, Archivist, you’ve got me looking forward to taking Elias on a trip. I really hope you don’t disappoint us.”

“Wait, you’re going now?” Already? So soon? 

“Why wait? The longer this is left unsolved, the more likely it’s that Elias will take a peek and ruin it for us. Yes, I think I’m going now. I don’t much enjoy London but for the good of the world and all that…” Peter laughed, and it sounded just as creepy as it had before. 

“Oh, thank you for meeting with us Peter!” Martin said. “And for helping with, um… with everything.”

“You’re welcome, kid,” Peter replied. Then he added, “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

Jon heard the sound of chairs being moved and when that intensely uncomfortable presence slowly walked away, his body unwound, unknotting tension he hadn’t noticed was locked in his muscles.  

“There goes one monster. Now to hope the other will follow soon.” 

“Tim!”

Jon was more concerned with the withdrawing avatar than Tim’s comment and ignored it for the sake of following the route Peter had taken, Knowing it, Seeing him with his mind now that he had turned away. His consciousness was just as indescribable as it had been, so utterly alien that Jon could barely comprehend how this… thing…. looked human -- how Peter had sounded human despite the… whatever it was.

“If you do decide to stay around town there’s always a few cabins empty in the Tundra,” Peter called back towards their table and Jon instantly yanked back. “And I won’t even be there to torment you. You should think about it.”

Then, as if a curtain had fallen, he was gone. Logically, he should have stepped outside and Jon should have been able to follow him there too. He hadn’t. Peter had simply vanished without a trace and Jon -- well, he was as curious as he was absolutely petrified. Another dimension? Was that it? Had Peter simply been whisked away by his master? 

Beads of sweat rolled down the back of his neck and Jon slowly reached for Gerry’s hand, the one that was firmly curled over his hip.

“We probably should get going, too,” Gerry said.  _ Especially if you want to find somewhere to stay for tonight.  _

“Oh.” Martin’s disappointment was real. Without Peter, Jon could just Know it, taking it within himself and feeling as if it were his own. “I was hoping, maybe, uh, we could all get another drink?”

“Uh,” Jon stumbled over the words. “Maybe if it’s not beer?”

Surprise coursed through him -- both his and Gerry’s -- and pleasure too. Gerry wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as Jon, but he was getting there. One more drink couldn’t hurt, though, right?

Tim exhaled loudly. “You, Gerard right? Come on, let’s leave them alone and get the drinks,” he hissed. 

They did. Jon encouraged him, though the gesture didn’t feel entirely his. Gerry's fingers slipped away and he found himself staring, albeit blindly, in the direction of the bar.

It was difficult to tell how much he’d needed that conversation. 

And how much he’d feared it too.

Looking back, it was a weight lifted off his shoulders. When Martin slipped closer; when Jon removed his ridiculous sunglasses… it was, more than he could’ve hoped for. To know that, despite the monster in him, he wasn’t quite as far gones as Peter. Not yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter to go :D So close!


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the road.

_ Elias is in his head again. _

_ No. That's not quite right, is it? This time, he is in Elias head. This time, He is the pervasive intruder, worming his way deeper through layers of memory and knowledge and emotion he had never known Elias felt.  _

_ Jon isn't even asleep. He doesn't remember falling asleep. If he strains to look back, he feels himself safely tucked away, surrounded by warmth and love in Gerry’s arms. When he manages to look back, he sees a lovely hotel room, the wallpaper is brand new, and his own face is peaceful.  _

_ Jon doesn't feel peaceful. _

_ There is not room for feelings. He's so far gone that a mistake could cost him his entire consciousness, erased from existence and replaced by… well, by nothing. That's not something he wants to risk. And neither does the Archivist.  _

_ It's right there, not beside him but as the force that drives him onward.  _

_ So is Elias. Not as the man himself, or even the monster behind the mask of a man, but as a presence that keeps trying to engulf him. If he succeeds… Jon doesn't want to think about that.  _

_ At first, Jon sees red. It's not blood, it's not liquid and it doesn't stick to him. It's surface makes an impression in his mind. It covers, for the most part, pieces -- shards of memories, of scenes that have been twisted and hidden away from sight. In this endless red sea, Jon catches glimpses of a man he doesn't recognise.  _

_ The memories are too fragmented to tell for sure what happened. Smoke, laughter, words that make no sense on their own. The pieces are all there but they've been buried, and Jon can't quite see past the red layer to make any sense of the puzzle, of the picture they paint. _

_ He tries. It seems important, somehow, to understand this complete stranger who has -- or had -- such an impact on Elias life.  _

_ “Are you sure you want to go there? That's such a lame job, supernatural researcher?” He finds the shred of a much larger conversation hidden through a thick swathe of what he can only describe as utter nonsense. This is… older, untouched, although if there is as reason for that, Jon doesn't know it.  _

_ There's laughter again. Jon doesn't recognise any of the voices involved. He hears them and they invoke some sort of feeling through Elias’ mind, the tiniest twitch of an invisible muscle, a ripple through the… brainscape he navigates.  _

_ Eventually, Jon pushes ahead, away from the red and towards somewhere else. He's here for a reason, he doesn't have long enough to lose himself in the mystery that is Elias Bouchard’s head.  _

_ It reminds him of the Institute, of the Archives. It’s not a building, but it could be. There are rows upon rows of cabinets, taller than Jon can perceive. There's barely any sense of direction. This isn't a projection of a real place, it's not a dream. It's an archive, yes, but not of documents. Elias doesn't need folders or words or even statements, though Jon knows he likes the organisation of the latter. It’s an archive of experience, of memory. Made larger than life on account of the billions of people on the planet.  _

_ Elias knows what they don't even remember anymore.  _

_ The sheer number is staggering, dizzying. Jon almost flags. For a moment -- what counts as a moment when time is utterly meaningless -- he feels trapped by the weight of the knowledge trying to converge on him. It's the Archivist that pushes him free. If it had a physical form, Jon is sure it would have manifested to shake its head at him.  _

_ Instead, the Archivist is a cloak he wears, draped across his shoulders. It is thankfully free of any eye imagery. Jon imagines it flowing freely behind his back, wafting in an invisible breeze. None of this is true, even as he thinks it, Jon is aware that it's just how he prefers to make sense of it, a callback to the nightmares forced upon him by Elias. _

_ I’ve told you once already. The Archivist is a concept, I can take any form I would like to, it says, to which Jon has no reply.  _

_ He's still caught by the volume of information present in Elias mind. It shouldn't be possible. It's not possible, of course not. And it is, Jon realises, the reason why there's no room for anything else; the reason why Elias’ humanity has long since splintered into pieces so small even the Beholding has no use for them.  _

_ Unlike what he experienced inside Gerry’s mind, thinking coherently becomes harder the closer he's to the centre of Elias’. He's not human. This isn't the person he might one day have been, but his present existence as an avatar, devoid -- though perhaps not entirely -- of any familiar comforts.  _

_ The core is… a bit like staring into the sun: so bright and searing hot and relentlessly hungry it would have burned his eyes from their sockets, if he had any in this place. In the back of his skull, in his real head, a headache brews instead. And the closer he gets to Elias-it, the more it turns Jon's thoughts outwards, its iron grip tearing at Jon's mind.  _

_ There's pain, sure. It jolts, fire or ice water in the absence, the pretense, of veins. It's a meaningless ache, thrumming under his skin. Jon has had so much worse. It's almost ridiculous to consider that it is only thanks to Elias; thanks to his own convoluted plans and to the Archivist he grew in him, that Jon is capable of withstanding the pain that tries, and fails, to tear him apart.  _

_ Once he is as close enough as he is able to bear, Jon stops. He doesn't need to reach inside, he knows he only needs to call. That once Elias becomes aware of him, properly aware of his presence, he won't be able to stop himself.  _

_ That's curiosity -- no. Hunger, isn't it?  _

_ Jon still doesn't really know how he's doing it. He only knows that he needs to do it.  _

_ By all accounts, it's not a very good plan. If he had a good plan, Jon thinks he wouldn't be here, risking his sanity -- his entire self, for the sake of the world.  _

_ Even now, Elias could trap him. Even now, the Beholding, the entity itself might try to destroy him through its vessel. The lingering threat makes no sense to Jon but he doesn't pretend to understand the workings of an infinite, fear-devouring creature from beyond his own universe.  _

_ And that… well, there's always a way of making things worse.  _

_ “Elias,” Jon says, his mind's voice -- if there's such a thing -- is steady as echoes across the vast maw of the thing he stands before.  _

_ It-- Elias manifests immediately, not quite forming but flickering, fully realised between one heartbeat and the next. Jon sees him, he knows, exactly how Elias wants to be seen: neat suit, perfect complexion, sharp, all seeing eyes, a smirk that doesn't quite stretch across his face.  _

_ All around him, the -- whatever makes Jon aware of his surroundings -- shifts. Before he can pull back, or protest, he's sat on a plush armchair in Elias’ office. The desk is red, but Jon can see through it now. He notices how it bulges, wood splintering to keep the scraps of Elias’ memories tightly locked away.  _

_ “Hello Jon. I expected you sooner,” Elias says. Tilting his head he adds, “And you, Archivist. Although I fear your visit will be rather short-lived.” _

_ “Likewise,” the Archivist replies, finding its own voice.  _

_ “Not short enough,” Jon mutter-hisses as he stands. There's only a little surprise as he realises he can still move. “If I never see you again after this, it'll still be too soon.”  _

_ “Hmmm.” _

_ Elias moves something over the desk. The chessboard is absent, as are all of its pieces. Reflecting dully in the light that's not really light at all, Jon sees a bottle slide towards him. There's nothing objectively interesting about it. No label, crudely shaped, its neck thinner on one side than the other. Nothing meaningful, not to him.  _

_ “Care for a drink?” When Jon shakes his head, Elias continues. “Hm, that is a shame. But so be it.”  _

_ Jon watches him take the bottle and pour some of its contents -- a liquid tinged gently red by the light -- into an equally unremarkable glass.  _

_ He's stalling. The knowledge is a knife tip sinking through him, parting his thoughts under its weight.  _

_ “You know why I'm here.” _

_ “Of course I do, Jon. I would imagine there is only one reason you would invade my personal domain after I've been rudely knocked out by- was it the-” Elias seems to ponder for a moment. “Peter, that old dog. He would have made a good assistant, if he weren't a Lukas.” Elias sighs.  _

_ You deserve worse than this, Jon wants to say. He doesn't though he's fairly sure Elias can read it in him nonetheless. “It's over,” Jon says instead. “ You've lost. Everything you’ve been planning for so long, none of it is going to happen.” _

_ “Maybe.” _

_ Jon bristles, anger flaring. His mouth snaps shut. What’s that supposed to mean?  _

_ Behind him the Archivist changes. It doesn’t appear as anything Jon can discern, but it tightens around his form, molding itself onto him. Protecting him? Jon doesn’t know. Whatever it’s doing, it’s a comfortable pressure and he doesn’t struggle.  _

_ “Very well, then,” Elias says. In one swift motion, he lifts the glass to his lips and downs his drink. “The Rite of the Watcher’s Crown. Do you know what you’re stopping? Has it shown you the kind of power you’re impeding?” Elias doesn’t wait for Jon to answer. “No.You have no idea. You couldn’t. I suppose it is my fault for keeping you in the dark, even if you did play straight into my hands for a very long time.” _

_ Jon doesn’t want to hear it and he doesn’t feel like he has a choice. He could pull back, but he won’t. He has one chance and he won’t ruin it. _

_ The room dissolves, red cascading like water all around them. It turns muddy brown then black as it washes away, revealing a gaping void beyond Elias’ office. In this darkness, shapes slowly coalesce. _

_ “Go on, do take a look,” Elias says, Jon watches him wave one arm towards the void. “See what you are trying to stop.” _

_ What Jon sees there is as wonderful as it is terrifying; it’s what lingers in the deepest recess of Elias’ mind, in the core that structures his entire being. It’s a direct connection to a creature so ancient and so utterly… unspeakably immense that the mere thought of it sends shivers running down his limbs.  _

_ Looking at it directly is impossible.  _

_ He tries, but can’t hold his gaze for more than a single moment. Any longer and he knows it will See him back, and it will absorb him as it has done so much already. Jon… wants this. He doesn’t notice the burning desire in his chest until the Archivist is the one holding him back.  _

_ Only then does he struggle. _

_ If the knowledge held within Elias’ mind were an archive, this alien being is… it’s not a library, it’s the entire world. It Knows, not only the things Elias has known, but everything that has ever come to pass -- that will ever come to pass. It’s endless, its hunger knows no bounds and- _

_ Elias laughs. _

_ “Statement of Elias Bouchard,” he says, sudden enough that the words remind Jon why he’s there; why he’s looking out at all, “regarding what he used to be. Taken from what subject has become, date immemorial.”  _

_ “What are you doing?” Jon gasps. From the corners of his eyes he watches as the entity continues to move, seemingly unaware of his or Elias’ presence. It’s far too large to concern itself with them. A giant ruling over ants. _

_ “You wanted to know. To understand. To organise the world into whatever little well-defined boundaries you can, so it makes sense to you, Jon. Did you not? Then listen and do your job, Archivist.” _

_ Jon doesn’t want it to make sense. Unfortunately, the edge of that idea has been pushed inside of him a very long time ago. He sits down -- though he can’t remember whether the armchair was always there or if the office re-appeared as he lost focus of the Beholding. _

_ “I was always nothing,” Elias is saying. He’s still by the desk, fingertips tapping the red wood in a way that feels vaguely obscene, though Jon has no idea why. “There was nothing particularly remarkable about my life. There were friends, occasionally partners. No family to speak of and no hobbies or any other markers of worthiness, so to speak. No. I was nothing. It’s no wonder I was the perfect candidate for an internship with the Magnus Institute. Sorting through old paperwork and helping with the library didn’t sound fun, but I did my job and I believe I enjoyed it.” _

_ Although Elias speaks of who he used to be, his tone is cold, clinical. If he ever cared about his past, the emotion is long gone.  _

_ “I did this for a while and eventually it found me, as it does anyone that touches the archives. Only instead of resisting its grip, I gave myself to it. The more it showed me, the more I needed it, the more I knew, the more I wanted. As it happens, it needed me too. The director’s vessel was starting to grow old and it knew I would make the perfect replacement.” Elias pauses and pours himself another drink. “When it took what I was away; when it shredded my memories away and reshaped my mind, I didn’t resist it. Do you know why?” _

_ Jon is aware of shaking his head. He doesn’t know why anyone would give themselves to one of the powers. _

_ “I... it was better. It was so much better than I’d ever felt before. It felt good to be destroyed and remade from the inside out. And as I became more than myself, I Knew just how pitiful, how miserable and meaningless my existence had been, how I would have died knowing nothing at all. No, Archivist, I never looked back. I embraced what I became. And in turn, it embraced me.  _

_ “If you look hard enough, I’m sure you’ll find scraps of that original, useless piece of flesh I wear. You’re free to make your own judgement, though I’m not sure you’ll find it retains the sort of coherence I do,” Elias said, his tone an ending in itself. _

_ Jon staggers for a moment, then finds the focus he’s been lacking. “I- uh, statement ends,” he says automatically. _

_ “Elias Bouchard does not exist. Not as anything but me, I suppose,” Elias finishes. “And I’m not who I used to be. Although it’s been such a long time that it’s difficult to tell what I am. An extension of its will- that is probably the closest box you’ll be able to tick me in.”  _

_ “Something that needs to be stopped,” Jon mutters under his breath. He doesn’t feel much sympathy for an Elias that willingly fed himself to the Beholding. He can’t. “Did you think this statement was going to change my mind?” _

_ Elias scoffs and Jon feels smaller than he’d done a moment earlier. “Did you ever think any of this was about me? Oh Jon. You understand even less than I had thought.”    
_

_ Does he need to understand it in order to stop Elias? That’s the question. _

_ “No. I am merely a piece of the puzzle and an example of what it can do. You could become so much better than you are, so much more, so much freer than you are.” Elias’ voice -- what Jon perceives as his voice -- drops to a whisper. “If only you were were able let go of all which binds you.” He manages to sound almost sad about it. _

_ “Fortunately, I don’t need to do that to stop you.”  _

_ Jon sees Elias shrug and leaned forward, closer to where Jon is sitting, still glued to that damn armchair. “Did you ever think it was real?” _

_ “I’m- I’m not sure what you mean,” Jon admits. _

_ “Your attachments. Did you think they would have had any meaning, had I not placed it in your head? Did you think your precious- Gerry is it? - would have felt the way he does, without my influence?” _

_ He’s lying. Jon is almost certain of it. Almost. There is no reason to listen to Elias and he can’t stop himself. He inhales -- he’s not breathing, there’s no need to breathe inside another’s mind but he does it anyway. “Maybe that’s how it started,” he forces himself to speak the words, to tell Elias what he does Know for sure. “It’s not… it’s not how it is anymore, I’ve seen it. I’ve known it. Maybe you’d understand if you hadn’t…” He lifts one hand, waving it between them. “Given yourself to that thing.” _

_ “Perhaps. Though I should think not,” Elias says. “You might stop the rite. You might even stop the next one and the one after. And at one point or another, you will realise how meaningless your companions, the path you follow, have become.” _

_ “He will never be meaningless to me,” Jon bites out. “Even if you had planned it. Even if you’d made it all it is… he’d not be nothing to me. You, on the other hand. I think… I’m ready to be done with you.” _

_ “Hmmm,” Elias hums, nodding again. “It won’t be the end of it. I won’t be the end of it.”  _

_ Jon understands. “I know,” he says. _

_ In a way, as twisted as it is, he’s thankful for what Elias has done to him. The thought surprises him even as he knows it’s the truth. Without any the Hunt, or the torture, he wouldn’t be capable of holding this conversation, or to know where to strike in order to crumble Elias’ mind. Without Elias, he wouldn’t have met Gerry. Would he?  _

_ Still, it’s not something he enjoys doing, even to this man who’s not a man at all. Between his fingers, he holds a finely weighted knife. It’s tip slightly curved. Jon knows its name and it doesn’t matter at all. He tightens his fist around it’s handle and stands again. _

_ Elias does too. _

_ What he sees is an image. It’s the most convenient, the simplest way his brain can understand it. _

_ It’s made worse by the fact Elias doesn’t give him the satisfaction of begging. Not for his pathetic existence as an avatar; for the rite, or anything else. Elias is quiet, his lips pressed into a thin, slightly downturned line. And that’s the entirety of the emotion he shows Jon.  _

_ When he lifts his hand and slashes the blade across Elias’ throat, there’s no pained cries, no sobs. There’s no reaction. Elias doesn’t fall to his knees. He stays standing.  Blood spurts from the wound, it’s wet on Jon’s bare forearm, and even that is only Jon’s mind rationalisation of what he’s really doing.  _

_ Guilt runs through him. Elias deserved worse, and yet…  _

_ “You will regret it,” Elias says, like his voice box hasn’t been torn open. Jon guesses it hasn’t. None of what he sees has actually happened. “Not yet. It’s too early for you to have settled into your role. The Institute, though… Eventually, you will look back and regret not giving in.” _

_ “Maybe,” Jon admits quietly. Maybe he will. Jon doesn’t think so, but he can’t see the future -- he can’t Know the future. He’s not… whatever would require him to have such a power. _

_ In the background, the Archivist is the monster methodically ripping through the foundations of Elias mind. One at a time, as precise as Jon’s blade was and far more dangerous. In a way, this is Jon, too. Another part of him. For an instant, he sees it clearly; the point where and the Archivist differ; the way he could simply will it away, to stop-  _

_ No.  _

_ Jon sits back down. Around him, the office is slowly breaking into pieces.  _

_ “You don’t know what you’re doing.” Elias sounds a bit like a broken record now, raw at the edges.  _

_ He doesn't resist. He could have, ties bind him to the Beholding and they snap one anchor at a time, setting him adrift. _

_ But he could have resisted, Jon thinks with whatever fury he has left. _

_ Elias doesn’t vanish or flicker or crumble away. It feels like… layers being peeled. He is still right there, close enough to touch. The collar of his suit-jacket is stained beyond repair and under or over the blood, superimposed like an old photograph, he sees another -- a different suit, a different time. A different Elias.  _

_ “You won’t die. I- You could. I could just kill you,” he explains, swallowing down the lump in his throat. He’s too human for that, Jon thinks. “I don’t think you’ll remember any of this, that’s… it's good.” _

_ “And you have deferred the matter of my life to Peter, I assume.” _

_ Jon knows Elias should have been in indescribable pain -- he's felt it before. Instead, he stares cooly into Jon's eyes, impassive even as everything that made him topples. There's a challenge in his gaze and it doesn't need a voice to be heard.  _

_ “Yes. I'm not going to kill you. I know that's what you want, isn't it? You'd rather die than be left like the nothing you once were- even less than that, a fraction of nothing,” Jon says and… he stops, one hand coming to rest over his mouth.  _

_ As the sound bounces and ricochets around them, as the shock fades, Jon knows he's meant every word. He doesn't  blame the Archivist in his head -- this is all him. His anger. His pain. His arrogance, he guesses, to believe this might redeem him.  _

_ Elias doesn't laugh, he's too splintered to manage it. This isn't even the same Elias he knows. He looks younger, smaller somehow.  _

_ “Death?” _

_ Jon shakes his head and Elias’ head drops forward, chin down on his collarbone. He tries to turn away from this pathetic shadow and -- he can't. They stand there, watching as the colour slowly drains from everything and everywhere.  _

_ “That's a shame,” Elias doesn't sound like Elias now. It's wrong, though Jon doesn't want to know how wrong it is. He doesn't want to look any deeper.  _

_ Elias stumbles as Jon watches, falling to his knees. His face is as grey as his hair had once been. His eyes are entirely white. There's an expression on his face Jon has only ever caught sight of when looking at himself through Gerry’s sight.  _

_ He's lost.  _

_ The panic comes much faster and is many times more intense than any guilt he has felt before. When he tries to pull back and fails it wells in his chest, coating every part of his mind with a sickly terror. He doesn't want to see what will happen to Elias. He never meant to.  _

_ You don't get to pick and choose what you Know or See, Archivist.  _

_ “Go,” Elias tells him. “You never struck me as a sadist.” _

_ But this isn't about watching the pain he's caused bear fruit. This is about something else -- Jon isn't entirely sure what until Elias face changes again and- _

_ “Who are you?” _

_ Jon heaves. He falls forward, slipping boneless to a portion of the floor that hasn't yet fallen away. He tastes bile on his tongue, swirling in his mouth. Elias -- this Elias, who the Beholding’s hooks never touched -- looks as horrified as Jon feels.  _

_ “Are you going to kill me?” Elias asks. There's something in the way he strings his words together that reminds Jon of himself. A familiarity where there should be none.  _

_ “No, I-” Jon doesn't notice he's still holding the knife until it scrapes him on the leg. He looks down, sees a growing dark patch in his trousers and the long silver blade in his hands. “I'm not going to hurt you.” He already has.  _

_ The Archivist steals Jon's pain as it bleeds through him and he almost wishes it didn't. It doesn't feel right not to suffer. Not now.  _

_ Maybe that's the reason… it's certainly a reason; maybe it's why he ignores the fact this is the exact opposite of what he set out to do and reaches to collect Elias in his arms.  _

_ His palm slides over Elias’ ruined suit. He runs his fingers against the threads. There's little resistance. Elias’ body is as malleable as it is broken. It changes as Jon looks, limbs slowly withering, skin stretching taut over bone. Only Elias’ voice remains the same even if its tone is hardly a callback to the Elias he just fought.  _

_ This Elias smells of weed, smoke and cheap booze. “It really hurts,” he says. “Am I dying?” _

_ Elias doesn't stutter, he doesn't falter. His cadence steady even as everything else breaks. His thoughts stretch in every direction and all of them focus in the same point. Any other memory  - anything else is shattered, too fragmented to grasp. Jon can't quite understand what it feels like, to be limited to one single moment -- to have everything else stripped away.  _

_ Then again, he doesn't need to understand to know compassion. After all, he's not the monster, is he? No. He is. He's a human monster. Capable of things even the Beholding can't comprehend.  _

_ This puzzles the Archivist, Jon feels its confusion in the back of his head, sharper when he strokes broad lines across Elias’ scalp, down the back of his neck; when his breath catches in his throat and tears burn unshed in his eyes. _

_ “No, not… you're not dying,” Jon is the one to mumble when he finally speaks. The world falls apart, falls away. “It'll be over soon.” And “I'm sorry.”  _

_ Elias whimpers, buries his face in the crevice between Jon's jaw and shoulder. His breath is warm and washes over Jon's skin in little gusts.  _

_ You wanted this, the Archivist says.  _

_ I still do, Jon tries to explain. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, or that it will ever hurt any less.  _

_ Elias is sharp now, as seen through a broken mirror. Jagged lines jut against Jon and he holds still when Elias finally shatters, a colourless dust blowing in the wind that's not wind at all. Tears track down his cheeks.  _

_ It's not a good ending.  _

_ It was never going to be as satisfying or fulfilling as the thought of it, as the feeling of it in Jon's head. It's an ending, though.  _

_ One of many, he suspects.  _

 

_ \--- _

 

Returning to his own body was... not quite an awakening as much as it was sinking into a tangled, writhing mass of his own thoughts, his own memory and his own knowledge instead of Elias’. It was a good change to be sure, but it wasn’t enough distance from what he had just witnessed.

It wasn’t far enough.

Jon didn’t want to forget. There was no way he could ever forget what happened to that poor idiot turned monster that became the Elias Bouchard he knew. No way.  But if he had a choice between keeping the memories of his existence alive and burning them, the choice was obvious.

He wouldn’t have forgotten. 

Instead, he pushed into Gerry’s head without as much as a breath, lingering in the warm, comfortable space he knew was theirs. He was met with a pressure in the forefront of his mind, and the weight of arms shifting around him on the bed. 

“Back already?” He heard Gerry mouth the words against the shell of his ear. “That wasn’t very long at all.”

Jon nodded, he didn’t know how long it’d been. It was still early. He didn’t want to open his -- or Gerry’s eyes. Not yet.

Outside, between seagull squawks and a seasalt breeze, million presences broke through the quiet Monday morning. Just people going on with their daily lives. Further away, so far it was a fleck of white in the darkness, Jon could just about discern where the Tundra was still docked. 

He didn’t investigate past the immense presence he recognised as Peter’s. If Elias was still with him, he was too faint now for Jon to take notice of. Too irreparably fractured to be sensed as anything but background noise.

When Gerry kissed his cheek Jon felt a flutter in his stomach and heat that ran up his spine, the tips of it like fingers, caressing him from the inside. “Do you want to show- okay no, talk about it?” 

Jon didn’t. He didn’t even trust his voice to convey those things he knew he shouldn’t just bottle inside but couldn’t possibly burden Gerry with. 

“That’s fine,” Gerry said to his silence. “We don’t have to talk about it. Not now, or ever, and if you want that’s fine. I don’t mind. Just take your time.” The softly understanding tone of Gerry’s voice almost made it worse.

He shouldn’t -- he had no excuses for what he’d done. Stopping the Rite of the Watcher’s Crown certainly didn’t feel like enough of one.

Jon’s breath caught the lump in his throat. 

_ I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t,  _ he thought, an edge of desperation driving his mind’s voice.  _ And it was worse than… I could’ve ended it. But I didn’t. I should have killed him.  _ Jon knew for certain _. I should have pulled the plug and he would be gone and- _

“Jon.” Gerry’s lips moved up, sliding over tears that trailed from the corners of his eyes down the curve of his face. Jon hadn’t even noticed he’d been crying. “Whatever you did to him, Elias deserved worse.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Elias had deserved worse than death. He still did. But which Elias was that? The one who’d boldly faced him, unmoving as Jon tore him down, the one who fed him lies over and over again. Or the terrified blank-faced kid who’d clung to Jon’s arms before vanishing.

“You couldn’t have known,” Gerry said, breathing each word against the sensitive skin of his eyelids. “If you had, none of this would’ve happened. Right? You wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here.”

The logic was shaky at best and Jon didn’t contest it. He needed to hear it. He needed to hear that what he’d done was still justified by what Elias had been. That he wasn’t… whatever he feared he’d become.

“Right,” he replied. His voice was a wreck. Not even a whisper. Not groggy but rough, hard and husky as if he’d been screaming for hours. “Right,” he repeated.

Gerry leaned their foreheads together, smiling against the tip of Jon’s nose. “If you’re worried, I can always ring Peter about it. I doubt he’ll refuse to tell us what happened, and we can get a confirmation he still has Elias with him.” 

Even without any Beholding affiliations of his own, Jon doubted Peter hadn’t been able to tell a change in Elias the moment it happened. Or that he wouldn’t have used it to… do whatever he had wanted with Elias. Jon didn’t know -- he didn’t want to.

“No.”  _ No. _  “I- I just…” 

Gerry kissed him. He read between the lines of his thoughts. “Need a distraction?” He pulled back, kneeling between Jon’s legs, one hand cupping his jaw.

Jon nodded again.

His -- well, Gerry’s eyes opened and Jon looked down to see… sobs quietly wracking his chest, dark grey hair ruffled out of control on a pillow too red for his taste. The entire bed set was a painful carmine tone and Jon shuddered at the sight of it. Like blood staining both of their naked bodies.

“I have an idea,” Gerry said, Jon noticed him glance in the direction of the window and the cold blue light streaming through the curtains. “Though unfortunately it involves us getting dressed and out of this place.” 

“I- hm, I’m sure I can manage.” 

Gerry helped him sit up, leaning back on the cushioned headboard. “Just let me know if… anything changes, yeah?” Before Jon could respond in any way to that, he continued. “But first, let me properly thank you for saving the world.”

Jon wasn’t entirely sure what Gerry meant -- not exactly, not until he felt him drag his mouth across the crook of Jon’s neck, nibbling and sucking and oh- that was nice.

For a little while, every thought flew from Jon’s mind.   
  


\---

 

“I know it’s a bit chilly but I figured you’d enjoy it,” Gerry said, holding the flaps of his coat open just so Jon could snuggle closer to his chest. “I know I do. It’s been a while…”

There was sand beneath his feet, poking between his toes. Coarse and vaguely annoying, and in all honesty, quite wonderful. 

It reminded Jon of… better times? No. That wasn’t right. It reminded him of something he’d missed, though.

“Hmm, I…” He paused, opened his eyes and saw the darkness tinged with streaks of white and then, through Gerry, the ocean horizon, blue on blue. “I do enjoy it. I usually wouldn't,” he admitted, “But you’re here and it… it helps. I guess I should say that more often, because that helps too.”

It wasn’t Bournemouth -- it was far from the sights he knew by heart, and still close enough that there was a resemblance he held on to.

The beach was mostly empty. Not exactly a surprise on a Monday afternoon, smack in the middle of February. But a jogger had waved and a dog had sniffed at the pair of them and that had made Jon smile, it was good -- it felt good to be here. He enjoyed it, it helped him forget… everything.

“You grew up at the seaside, there’s some of us who weren’t quite so lucky.”

“I didn’t mean it like-”

“Jon, relax. I’m just teasing you,” Gerry said, reaching one arm around Jon’s waist to pull him into a hug. “I know what you meant. It’s probably annoying as hell to be around when it’s crammed full of people.”

“Sometimes, I was never... “ Jon sighed, lifting his head to stare out into the nothingness. “Never really the type of kid who’d come here often. But these days…”

“Things changed?”

“Exactly.”

They were somehow blessed with a couple of rays of sunlight piercing through the cloud cover. The sun shone across the the ocean like diamonds and Jon wondered if this was somehow Peter’s doing -- of course not, he wasn’t some sort of sea fairy, though the idea did make him laugh.

When Gerry squeezed his hand, Jon shared the thoughts with him.

Soon enough they were both collapsing backwards onto a pile of sand, laughing at the ridiculous images Jon’s brain had conjured.

“Sometimes I just…”

“Hate me?”

Jon laughed harder at that, until his chest deflated and his stomach throbbed. Until his head cleared and he tipped the scales, from silly to overly sober.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Jon found himself saying, one hand firmly wrapped over Gerry’s, his palm flat over his heart. Like this, he could feel Gerry’s pulse. “Elias is still alive and there are… so many others.”

“It’s never ending. All this bullshit. It’s never gonna end,” Gerry said. “And you know what? It doesn’t even matter. I’m still here-  _ you’re  _ still here.”

“Together,” Jon finished for him. He felt a little silly saying it, but only until Gerry nodded and heard the thoughts streaming from his mind. Love and acceptance and everything he had… not ever wanted, but all he wanted for now.

Really.

“Together.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this! It's my first time writing something quite so long and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I did writing it.


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